Mother Time
by Country Timelord
Summary: The Doctor, Rose, Jenny and Jack are planning on going to see Donna, but when the TARDIS starts acting up and the Doctor receives a message, they have no choice but to investigate. The Doctor's Wife, AU . Sequel to The Doctor and His Time Ladies.
1. Prologue

The floor of the TARDIS wardrobe was covered haphazardly with various clothes and accessories in every color Jenny could imagine. She stared curiously at Rose who was rummaging through one of the Doctor's trunks marked _Twenty-First Century Ape-Wear_ in the Time Lord's previous incarnation's hand writing. The thought of an ape wearing clothes humored her, but she was baffled as to why Rose would ever want to wear something that belonged on an Ape.

"Do apes wear clothes in your time, Rose?" Jenny asked, innocently, causing Rose to bite back her giggles and shake her head.

"No, Jenny," Rose told her, as she leaned back and crossed her arms and stared at the ceiling in nostalgia. "It was something you're father did in his last regeneration. He didn't mean it by the time he wrote that, it was just a joke."

"Does regeneration change him much?" Jenny asked, crossing her legs and sitting on the floor next to Rose, while she picked through more clothes.

"Not really, I mean look wise, yeah, and a bit in personality, but inside, he's the same. He's my Doctor."

"What did he look like?"

"He was handsome," Rose admitted with a bit of a blush, "a bit more strong and muscled than him now, shorter hair with a bit more of a worn look about him, and big ears. I'll show you some pictures of him in previous regenerations, sometime while he's not around. They're good for a laugh."

"Really?"

"Yeah." Rose giggled. "Granted his Sixth Regeneration's coat could blind you and scare small animals."

Jenny laughed softly, looking at all the clothes around her. A great majority of them looked more like they were for looks or dress-up instead of actually wearing in public. She could have sworn that one suit in the distance looked like it was made of metal.

"I don't understand, Rose," Jenny stated, while she carefully sorted the dresses that Rose had tried to insist she try on and placed them back on the racks.

"What?"

"Why there's so much stuff," Jenny asked. "My clothes are functional; they're good for stuff like running or—promise you won't tell my dad—fighting."

"I know, so are mine," Rose said motioning to her zip-up hoodie and jeans. "But, sometimes it's a bit fun to, y'know make boys go a bit crazy."

Jenny furrowed her brow and looked at the converse sneakers that Rose had convinced her would be far better for running in. She did like them, quite a lot actually, but she couldn't see the point of some of the other clothes she had insisted on. There were dresses, that surely could have been shirts and skirts that wouldn't work for running at all. Why would men like that? And, why did it matter, she had Jack. Would a skirt drive him crazy? She didn't think so— he might laugh. It wasn't even worth mentioning that some of the shoes that Rose had suggested appeared to be absolutely deadly. Would regenerating make Jack like her more?

"Jack says that a lack of clothes does that," Jenny pointed out logically, pushing the glasses her dad had made for her up her nose and sniffing. She didn't like them much either, but he—like Rose— had been very insistent especially after he noticed her nose brushing the book she had curled up with last night next to Jack. Back on Messaline, she thought that they would have been able to make her a microfilm to correct her vision, but her father insisted this was much cooler; at least they did seem to make Jack a bit more affectionate—weirdly.

"Well, he would," Rose said with a laugh, and pushed some jeans in Jenny's direction. "Here, these are your size, the TARDIS says so anyway, that way you can put them in your room and you won't have to root through here every time you get dressed."

"Thanks," Jenny said gratefully, noting that all the jeans were quite comfortable looking and very much like her old ones.

"Don't thank me," Rose said, leaning against a strut of coral and grinning. "The TARDIS is the one who made them, not me. She says that I need to go easy on you."

Jenny grinned sheepishly setting the jeans aside and moving to the new crate that Rose had been fishing in. "What's in here, then?"

"Mostly t-shirts, you should have a look," Rose said, while she moved over and ducked into a dresser and pulled out began to search around. "You might find some ones you like."

Jenny nodded and pulled out a few solid colored t-shirts and laid them carefully aside, before walking over to Rose, feeling the slight spring in her new shoes. She could grow to like these, she thought. Plus, Rose had told her than black goes with everything, so she assumed she could wear them with anything.

"What's in there?" Jenny asked, while she knelt beside Rose and peered into the box. She pulled out a long green dress and held it up to Jenny. The satiny fabric glistened in the warm golden glow of the TARDIS. The short sleeves would fall a couple of inches above the wearer's shoulder and was cut to fit a slim figure.

"See for yourself," Rose said getting to her feet and motioning for Jenny to do the same while she placed it up against her front and watched as the fabric just touched her knees. Jenny ran her fingers down the fabric, thinking of how stunning it looked despite how much she was trying to avoid Rose getting her into a different style.

"It's beautiful," Jenny told her honestly. "Really, it is." She took the dress from Rose and held it up against her. "D'you think Dad, would mind if I, you know… tried it on?"

Shaking her head, Rose said, "Of course not. I think he'd like to see you in this. Jack too, of course. But, your father does have a thing about seeing girls appear in his console room in dresses." She ran her fingers down her ponytail hanging slightly over her shoulder. "I could do something with your hair as well."

"Really?" Jenny asked, looking almost fearfully, while she backed away and bit her bottom lip. "Like, dye it, or…"

"No, no," Rose said with a laugh. "I was just gonna brush it down for you, maybe trim your bangs a bit. I could curl the edges so they flip in a bit."

"Umm." Jenny paused, rubbing the back of her neck and looking down at her hair. She liked it the way it was, it was functional, a bit fun, but it wouldn't be so bad to have a trim. Her bangs were beginning to get in her face a bit. "Okay, but no curling… sounds… strange."

"Alright, then," Rose said, giving Jenny a winning smile and taking her by the forearm in a friendly gesture. "It's going to be fun, trust me."

Jenny forced an unsure smile, while she followed Rose and hoped that she was right.

~o~

Three burns, four cuts, and one near death on the Captain's part, and the Doctor still couldn't get the TARDIS to function normally. She was almost jumpy, not wanting to go back to Earth to get Donna. Instead she was insistent that she stay floating in the exact place that she had randomly decided to exit the Time Vortex. She had completely shut down for a few minutes, only keeping the barest of the functions running while she ticked over, ignoring the multi-lingual curses her Time Lord had thrown her direction. He pouted all the time, why couldn't she?

Sighing, the Doctor slid out from under the console with his first three fingers of his right hand in his mouth. His eyes settled on Jack staring at him, as he slowly slid his fingers from his mouth and putting his injured hand in his pocket.

"Wha'd'you think's wrong with her, Doc?" Jack asked trying to make sense of the readings on the computer screen, but for some reason the TARDIS was only using Gallifreyan. He shook his head as he leaned back on the Captain's Chair while the Doctor stroked the edge of the console.

"Dunno," the Doctor muttered, looking at Jack and biting his lip. "I'd say she was reacting against you, but she says she's not, so. She's just so nervous."

Jack looked away, and the Doctor mentally kicked himself several times. Looking at Jack wasn't so bad for him since the Year that Never Was, but every now and then it would catch him off guard. It gave him the same sensation of when he was on Gallifrey, wrapped up in his bed, but thinking of the Toclafane. He remembered distinctly, staring at the walls and waiting to see them ready to jump out at any moment from under his bed. Something so terrible ready to come from something so safe and trusted.

"Jack, I—"

"Don't be," Jack said, putting his head down and giving a mirthless laugh. "Even Jenny noticed, you know? She said she knew all along, but was waiting for me to tell her. At least, that's what she told me yesterday."

Nodding the Doctor concurred. "Yeah, she would have. I didn't think she would be able to interpret it, but I guess she's even cleverer than she looks. Hmm cleverer, is that right?"

"I think so," Jack said distractedly. "She made me tell her though. Said that she didn't want me to 'lie' to her."

The Doctor gave a small half smile and pushed his way onto the captain's chair, causing Jack to relocate by leaning on the edge of the console. He crossed his arms and began to roll down his shirt sleeves after he had rolled them up to help the Doctor.

"Mhm… Do you love her, Jack?" The Doctor asked the question out of blue, surprising even himself slightly as he gave the Captain a hard stare. He wasn't there for her when she regenerated, or when she traveled, but he could be here for her now. Jack Harkness was a good man, he'd give him that, but he was still just a man, and he was prone to temptation. Jenny couldn't possibly be ready for a man of his… experience.

"What?" Jack stuttered, obviously caught off guard.

"Do you love her," he repeated, getting up from the chair and standing in front of him. Somehow, the lanky Time Lord managed to look threatening as he leaned forward towards Jack but didn't touch him. "Will you always love her? Even if you know you'll lose her?"

"Yes," Jack said instantly.

"Because, I know, Jack, how hard it is. Watching them grow old, you know that Jenny will wither and die in the end, she only gets to regenerate ten more times, and then that's it. I've left companions without looking back, and I don't want you doing that to my daughter."

The words seemed to pour from the Doctor's lips on their own accord, as he stared at Jack. He knew they sounded hypocritical, and presumptuous, but he couldn't help it. If Rose had never helped him, he might still be leaving companions, or never letting them get close. He knew from experience that a man could be made better by the right person. Rose had proven that, but it took time. Jenny would have to wheedle her way into Jack's heart like his Rose had done, and she would have to hold him back when he went too far, and she would have to push him forward when he thought that he could no longer take another step.

And, he would have to take Jenny's hand and hold it when she reached out. Not hold anything back, like he had done for too long and finally vowed to cease doing with Rose. He would have to run by her side when there was trouble and when she just wanted to feel the breeze run through her hair. He would have to be there for her when all he wanted to do was run away.

"Promise me, Jack."

"I promise, Doctor," Jack told him. "She's my wife. The stupid computer just had to go and crash. I should have known that it would have thrown me back to a section of the library she wouldn't have been in."

Raising an eyebrow, the Doctor looked like he was about to question him, but he stopped. "Don't Jack, just don't."

"Whatever you say," Jack joked, as he slid to the right and the Doctor receded back into his chair.

"You're not married, not really."

"We are," Jack said with conviction, his voice rising slightly. "Six years together, and two-"

"Six assumed years together in a computer's hard drive. It altered both of your ways of thinking. You made each other into the perfect spouse, but you skipped the fights, the late nights waiting… the searching."

Biting his lip, the Doctor forced himself to stop. He was getting too emotionally attached. He needed to back up, catch a breath and think this through logically before he said something stupid, but in judging the anger in Jack's voice it was already too late.

"I do love her," Jack told him harshly, while he turned on his heel balling his hands in fists before turning back to the Doctor, eyes blazing. "You know it's been a couple thousand years since I last saw you?"

"Yeah, so?" he asked quietly, while he looked over to Jack and tried to ignore the pain that he thought could only come from his own reflection. He had seen so much, maybe even more than the Doctor in some respects. He had been tied down like he had never been before and forced to take the slow path.

"I've changed. I lost everyone at Torchwood; I left the organization completely eventually, when I couldn't stand it anymore. I've met more people, floated around, and tried to move on."

Jack paused for a moment, offering the Doctor an opportunity to jump on him, but he didn't take it.

"I'm not going to lie and say that I was completely detached from everyone, I wasn't, but it stopped being what it used to be, Doctor. It wasn't fun anymore. It was trying to catch what wasn't there, what used to be."

Looking up, the Doctor gave him a questioning look. "Until you met, Jenny?"

"Yes," Jack said emphatically. "She was different. When I was with her I didn't want to wander. I didn't want to run away, and that was even before I found out about her being part Time Lord. Something about her was right."

"That's what she said," the Doctor mumbled, "well, something to that effect. She even said that when she noticed you were a fixed point, she only found it… endearing."

"Can you blame her?" Jack asked, flashing his winning smile. His eyes however remained serious and completely sober. "I promise, Doctor."

"I believe you," he paused, pointing a finger in his direction. "But, I swear, if you hurt her… I'll… I'll…"

Jack held up his hands. "I know. I know, airlock, right?"

"Right," the Doctor confirmed.

Jack grinned, knowing that he would never give Jenny's father a chance to hurt him. "You were sort of right though, about her not being really married to me. But, I was going to mitigate it. With this."

Watching as Jack's hand went into his pocket, the Doctor braced himself for what was to come. He knew that look. He had one night, after letting alcohol take its effect on him, considered giving Jackie Tyler that look. He still might have given it to her, if it were not for her being trapped in a parallel universe. The look when someone asked for their child's…

The box was covered in the tradition red velvet, as Jack opened it briefly to show his hopefully-future-father-in-law the ring. He clicked it shut after a few moments, as if he didn't want to let anyone but Jenny get the full effect of the item. It seemed wrong to see the reflection of the open box in anyone's eyes besides Jenny's.

"Can I ask her?" Jack asked, softly, as he tucked the box back into his pocket quickly, as he glanced over the Doctor shoulder and suddenly his whole expression changed. "Can I ask her if she wants me to show her around Earth, while you and Rose visit Donna? I'll have her home by midnight." He forced a cheeky grin onto his face, but it was somewhat strained.

The Doctor whirled around to see Jenny and Rose standing there. Rose looked rather smugly at Jenny, who was completely decked out, except for her new black converses. A small amount of makeup covered her cheeks in a soft blush and brought out her lips against her soft-toned skin. She smiled sheepishly, while she stepped forward and twirled around.

"Of course," the Doctor said, quickly turning back toward Jack for a brief second to throw a wink in his direction.

"Thanks," Jack mumbled, as he walked past the Doctor and towards Jenny

Her cheeks blushed a bit, as she stared down at her feet and turned them in and out at the ankles. She ran her fingers through her loose hair and brushed away her freshly trimmed bangs. His hands found their way to her sides where they rested for a few brief seconds as his eyes sought hers.

"How does that sound?" He asked, referring to the walk around London.

"I'd like that," Jenny told him, not noticing that Rose had gravitated back towards the Doctor on the Captain's chair and was leaning across his chest, reaching up and pecking him sweetly on the lips, tap her temple and say something to the affect, of 'the TARDIS told me.'

Instead, Jenny just kept staring at Jack, his cool blue eyes filling over with too many emotions for such a simple task. None the less, she looped her arms behind the back of his neck and brought him down to her level. Their foreheads brushed against one another and she stole a soft kiss.

"You look gorgeous," Jack said, with a soft chuckle, before turning over to Rose. "You couldn't put on a dress too. The more the merrier," he joked.

"Rose is showing me, how to… erm… adjust my style," she told him, and motioned to her shoes. "Did you know that black goes with anything? Strange customs color coordinating."

"Well, you know, it alters as you move through history," the Doctor put in while he stood and put a hand on his daughter shoulder. "You do look lovely. Love the shoes, especially. Good for running."

"Running," Rose said with a soft laugh and took the Doctor's hand, a previous memory ghosting over both their faces nostalgically.

"Love the running," Jenny said, giggling.

Jack grinned, putting his hand on Jenny's waist and pulling her closely, feeling the smooth fabric beneath his fingers. His eyes skimmed over her, stopping to linger on every curve perfectly hugged by the dress, over her face, and to her freshly trimmed hair.

"Well, might have to wait for a while to get Donna," the Doctor interrupted, as he walked over to the console and tried to type in another destination, but only elicited a pained groan from the TARDIS, causing Rose to rub her temples in discomfort.

"Don't do that," Rose muttered, looking at the Doctor with distaste for the first time. "She hates it."

The pain wasn't terrible, no worse than an average migraine, but when it was coming from the TARDIS's discomfort she became worried.

Stepping forward, the Doctor put his hands on her shoulders and guided them down to her hands. "What is it? What do you feel, Rose?"

Rose shook her head, leaning over the TARDIS console and walked around it, while her hand trailed along the edge. "I dunno. It's wrong, so wrong."

The pain was increasing now, and everything was starting to spin. The TARDIS was screaming at her, trying desperately to get her attention, but she couldn't understand her through the pain and confusion.

"Rose, focus."

"They're calling," she muttered, looking at the Doctor fearfully. "Doctor, they're calling. They're calling from nowhere."

"Who is? Rose." His eyes were growing in concern, as she visibly began to shake in front of him. Jack and Jenny moved in as well, Jenny putting her hand on her friend's shoulder and Jack getting ready to catch her should she start to fall.

"The dead, the dying, the missing, the impossible," Rose said, looking up at the Doctor. "The boxes, the box with the most impossible message. It's so sad. They'll make you so sad. Oh, Doctor."

Rose practically threw herself towards the Doctor, as she wrapped her arms around his neck and held on as if her life depended on it. Her hands clawed at the fabric of his jacket and held on almost painfully, while he clung back. He looked over her shoulder to see Jack and Jenny staring at her silently, while Jack's hand slowly threaded its way through Jenny's.

"Rose, tell me what's wrong," the Doctor demanded gently, pulling back from her slightly, so he could look in her eyes. "Take your time and just tell me."

Rose shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts before nodding. She drew a deep breath and released her hands from around the Doctor so that they fell limply at her sides. She looked away from the Doctor and back at the console.

"She's scared," Rose whispered, looking at the Jenny and Jack. "Don't let them trick you."

"Who?" Jack asked, stepping towards Rose, but she drew back shaking her head and blinking several times.

"Sorry," she muttered, as she looked at the Doctor and grinned. "Don't know what came over me. Must be tired or something. So, back to Donna, right?"

The Doctor looked at Rose with deep concern, letting his eyes wander over her as if whatever was ailing her would jump out from nowhere. She looked healthy, and the fear from her eyes was almost completely gone. He touched her cheek with his hand and gently skimmed over her cheekbone with his thumb, letting her warmth spread through him and offer him some confidence.

"Yeah, was about to tell you and Jenny. The TARDIS won't let us move for the time being, it's like she's waiting for something," the Doctor said, addressing Jenny as well, before she began to try he own hand at the computer system since her father seemed stumped. "Rose, you're connected to the TARDIS, do you feel anything?"

"Not anymore, no," she said shaking her head, trying to grasp at the emotions and ideas that had filled her head before, but finding that it was hidden from her. Thinking hard, and touching the central column for support, she reached into the TARDIS, letting the Bad Wolf in her seek out its mistress. "She knows it has to happen, but she doesn't want it to happen. She doesn't want it to."

"Doesn't want what?" the Doctor asked, looking away from Rose and at the ceiling of his ship, letting his hand fall back and touch one of the coral struts. "It's okay," he whispered, letting his mind fall back as well and touch her gently. "I'll handle it."

Whatever it was he would handle it, he had too much at stake now to not try to figure it out.

"Doctor," Jack spoke loudly catching his friend's attention, before letting his voice drop. "Do you hear that?"

A soft knocking came from the double doors at the bottom of the ramp, immediately, Jenny walked over quickly to open it, but Jack caught her arm. "We don't know what it is."

"Does it matter?" Jenny asked, releasing herself from Jack's grip and looking at her father, who was walking past her with Rose at his side.

"Someone's out there," the Doctor muttered, while he looked at Rose, "was that what she meant?"

"I don't think so, something about a house, she's saying now," Rose stated softly.

The Doctor nodded, putting his hand on the door before looking back. "You know that it's impossible for anyone out there to be knocking, right?"

"You like impossible," Jack reminded him with a grin, while he leaned back nonchalantly on the railing.

"Yeah, plus, we've got shielding, so anything that's out there, the TARDIS would have had to let in," Jenny added.

"Right, so this can't be what she's afraid of," the Doctor reasoned as he cracked a smile. "On we go then." He pushed the doors open with a flourish as a small white box flew past him and landed in Rose's hands before leaping out and landing back into the Doctor's.

"What is that?" Jenny asked, pushing her glasses further up her nose as they annoyingly slid down again.

"It's a hypercube," the Doctor replied mystically, wonder clear on his face as all his outer worries seemed to melt away.

Jack reached out carefully, as the Doctor let it fall into his hands. "I only read about these in school. They're like advance alien communication."

"Oi!" the Doctor protested, while he took the cube and stroked it a bit with his fingers. "Advanced obviously, but you're on my ship and Time Lords are not aliens here. Besides, if you count Time Ladies, we out number you, Harkness. You are technically the alien."

Sniffing, the Doctor lounged back on the captain's chair, while Rose and Jenny snickered.

"Fine, but that means there's another Time Lord out there," Jack said, while he watched the Doctor turn the box over in his hands and reveal an insignia of a snake eating its own tail. Jack watched the smile grow on his face. "What is it?"

"It's an Ouroboros," the Doctor said wistfully, as he trailed his finger down the image one more time before sonicing it once with his screwdriver and plugging it into the console, as a beeping was emitted from the device and the Doctor looked onto the screen to see the TARDIS had finally decided to behave herself. "I had an old friend of mine. He regenerated and kept that tattooed to his arm, even turned into a women once, still had it. She liked to flaunt that," he said, his voice raising an octave as he began to fervently punch in commands into the TARDIS, as it began to rattle around uncontrollably.

Jack reached out to steady Jenny against, him, while the Doctor took Rose's hand with one of his, while the other still punched away at the controls.

"But, Doctor," Rose shouted over the din of the ancient ship. "You said that you'd feel if there was another Time Lord. You said it felt empty."

"It does," the Doctor exclaimed. "They're not in this universe, though. They're outside of it, according to this signal. It's leading me to loads, there's dozens of them, Rose! More Time Lords."

"What if they're like the Master?" Jack yelled grimly.

"I'll handle it," the Doctor shrugged off, as the next shake nearly knocked him off his feet.

"What's that?" Jenny asked.

"I'm burning rooms for fuel," her father answered, running his hands over his face briefly. "There goes Jack's, the library, the swimming pool—which is in the library, so I don't know why I listed that, Rose's room, Jenny's room, my room, kitchen, extra rooms, and all the other rooms I can't remember."

"All of them?" Jenny asked.

"Nahh, just seventy percent, really," he replied, as he gripped the console as the knocking turned into a constant shake. "I'm letting the TARDIS choose mostly."

The clattering continued, as the Doctor sobered slightly, as the cloister bell began to sound. He gathered Rose into his arms and smiled, touching the pendant around her neck briefly before mumming, "I love you," in her ear. She looked up at him about to reply, but the fear in his eyes made her hesitate and the next thing she knew was the Doctor's lips against hers, then darkness.


	2. Chapter 1

The Doctor bent over Rose, softly stroking her hair with his fingers. Worry was eating away at his insides, but he forced himself to smile that grin that he saved just for her. He wasn't going to make the first thing she woke up to his face stretched in anxiety. She didn't deserve that. He heard Jenny helping Jack up from the floor before she crossed over to him and put her hand on his shoulder. Sparing a looking in her direction, he let his defenses down briefly and showed her a fraction of the concern he really felt.

"What happened?" she questioned.

"The TARDIS matrix it's just gone, not destroyed but gone," he whispered, looking back towards Rose. "The TARDIS is a part of Rose, so it's rather hard on her. Where ever we landed, it's not agreeing with either of them."

The Doctor thought about what could possibly be outside, and how more than anything he wanted to turn around, despite the possibility of more Time Lords. He would take Rose back, where she'd be safe and investigate alone; too bad he was out of power.

"And, where are we?" Jenny asked softly, as Rose scrunched her face up at the sound of her voice and reached out her hand in a ghosted motion as the Doctor took it.

He ignored his daughter for the time being, as he took both of Rose's hand in one of his and held them up to his chest. They were soft in his hands, supple and warm against his cool skin that had ultimately become rough in this regeneration. He didn't know why it occurred right after he had lost her in the Battle of Canary Warf, but he assumed it was because he had quit filtering out the most dangerous situations he could get into. The rest of him had showed that as well. His hair had grown longer and he let stubble grow in around his chin and jawline. He decided then that Rose didn't just make him better. She kept him better.

"I'm here," he told her in a soft cheerful voice. "Don't think most Earthmen could make you faint like that–must be something special. Eh?"

Rose groaned again mumbling something under her breath as she squeezed his hand tighter, as if it would help her to create a link to what was real and whatever was going on in her head. He cupped her face and rubbed her temple with his thumb, a gentle psychic link to coax her back to him.

"Hello," he murmured, helping her to sit up as she opened her eyes and grinned at him. Something about her eyes seemed duller however The shine that had come back to her dark, hazel eyes was gone now. He missed it already, despite not being ale to put his finger on it.

Rose must have sensed his feelings; because just as he opened his mouth to comment, she locked her mouth on his and rested her lips there for a brief moment before retreating with the same feather light touch. He smiled at him as reopened her eyes from the kiss, and touched his cheek with her thumb and made her way to the wide of his nose before working downward coming to a stop at his chin, holding it for the briefest of seconds.

"Hello," she mumbled dazedly, as she wrapped her arms around him and smiled against his shoulder.

"Hello," he repeated, but he caught sight of Jenny and Jack's equally entertained faces and cleared his throat noisily. Were they really expecting him to have some other reaction to Rose waking up? It was _Rose_ after all. "Where was I?"

"Where are we?" Jack told him, hiding the snicker from his voice with considerable skill.

"Right, well we're outside the universe," the Doctor said simply. "Any other questions?"

"I've got one," Rose said, falling easily into what the Doctor expected them to do, with a giddy smile. "How?"

"Good question, Rose–much more prevalent that the Captain's one," he added with a small laugh, as Rose gave Jack an apologetic look. "You should take note, Jack. Anyway, right, how, good question. I burned up seventy percent of the rooms, the ones I saved include, the med-bay, the console room–obviously–, the rose garden, the sitting room, the zero room, and well, don't feel like listing them all, but you get the point."

"_Rose_ garden," Jack muttered in Jenny's ear and snickered, while the Doctor glared.

"Anyway, we used the other rooms a fuel to get onto this little universe outside our bigger universe," the Doctor explained.

"Like a parallel world?" Rose asked.

"Exactly, but nothing like that," the Doctor said with a confirming voice, as he turned to Jenny. "Jenny, your turn."

Jenny tugged at her loose hair and thought for a moment. "The Universe itself isn't perfect. There are loads of imperfections all over the place, so it's like the universe pinched in on itself the sealed it off. So, we had to break through those walls to get in," Jenny said, pushing her glasses up her nose, while she looked at her feet for inspiration on how to continue, but her father seemed satisfied.

"Brilliant," the Doctor said. "But, you really couldn't expect much less, when you consider her excellent gene pool."

Jack rolled his eyes and Rose punched the Doctor in the arm, as he looked at her affronted. He was just stating the facts; it wasn't his fault if there were some inferior species out there.

"But, you said the TARDIS matrix was gone," Jack reminded him, "from what you've told me about the TARDIS that's…:

"…The essences of the TARDIS, everything she was and is, and everything she feels or does," Rose continued. Her voice audibly dropped off, and she touched the dead console, feeling the emptiness. She could feel the small part of the TARDIS that was left calling to her, asking for help, but she could do nothing. She looked down at her hands clenching and unclenching them until it hurt, just to feel something.

"The heart and soul of the TARDIS," the Doctor confirmed. "But, she's not destroyed, just gone, like a vacation," he told Rose, taking her hands in his and looking deeply in her eyes. "We'll find her. The Doctor and Rose in the TARDIS, just how it's supposed to be, yeah?"

"With Jenny and Jack," Rose added quietly while she nodded and smiled. "We'll save her."

"If she needs saving," the Doctor corrected, getting back into his usual jocund mood. "I said vacation; she might be sitting on some proverbial beach somewhere, drinking wine and resting her… rotor."

He watched the genuine smiled spread over her face as he squeezed her hand a final time and leapt down the ramp.

"So, plan, step one find the Time Lords, step two… is in the works," he announced, shoving his hands in his pants pockets as Rose followed him.

Jenny rested one of her hands in Jack's, while they stepped out of the TARDIS doors after the Doctor and Rose. They were already surveying the area around them. Jenny toed the ground with her sneaker and sent dry dust into the air. The whole place was rather dimly lit as she squinted against the strange green fog around them.

"It's like and asteroid," Jack said, stepping next to the Doctor, who nodded.

"Yeah," the Doctor agreed halfheartedly, while he ran his fingers through his hair. "But there's something off about it."

"Like it's living," Jenny said, bending down and taking a handful of dirt into her hands and letting it slide through her fingers and back in the ground. Rose joined her, as she picked up some foliage and examined it.

"What makes you say that?" Rose asked, tossing the green object aside as she realized it was well into a stage of rotting, despite appearing to have been growing from the ground. She rubbed her hands on her jeans and grimaced.

"Dunno, just feels like it," Jenny replied.

"It just feels dead to me," Rose said, running her hands over her arms against the gooseflesh forming on her arms.

"But, being dead means that it was once living," Jack pointed out.

"Mhm," the Doctor confirmed from where he stood, looking out to the distance. "Hello," he said brightly into the distance, as three figures began to approach. He held his hand out behind him to stop his friends from joining him. They didn't feel like Time Lords, but he definitely heard their voices in his head. They were close, and he was just about to find them. The brief knowledge that they might not take too kindly to the fate of the rest of the Time Lords crossed him, but he forced the thoughts to the back of his mind. He could explain, and they might accept him. They were the last and had been gone for a while on a dying asteroid, they'd need him, and he could make it up to them.

Two of the three figures walked rather strangely, but answered back to his call with clumsy waves, while the third figure simply approached stiffly. They appeared to be alone and harmless, until just behind them the figure of a woman started running towards them. In the Doctor's head, she felt different than the others, more timey wimey and certainly more wibbly wobbly. She wasn't exactly a Time Lord either, but she was closer, perhaps some sort of cross-breed with the natives on the asteroid. They were spreading; the Doctor thought cheerfully, maybe there was a chance at hoping for him and…

"Thief! Thief! Thief!" the woman cried from the distance, as she covered the length of ground between the Doctor and herself in record time. In shock, the Doctor didn't move to avoid her as she threw herself on him and knocking him to the dirt as his companions shouted around him–all but Rose, who stood aside grinning as the woman kissed the Doctor multiple times hastily and wetly. Somewhere in the middle of the kissing, she started biting at his neck, as he yelped in pain.

Finally, regaining his control when she felt the mad woman's tongue trying to reach out to him, he pushed her off of him and Jenny was immediately at his side, helping him to his feet and brushing off his jacket.

"Are you okay, Dad?" Jenny asked, as she touched the angry red welt just under his ear.

"I'm fine, yeah," the Doctor replied, as Jack walked over to the woman, who had taken to having a lively conversation with Rose.

"Wolf, you're the Wolf," she said happily, as she wrapped Rose in a hug that was much less violent than the greeting that the Doctor had received. "I miss you so much."

"I missed you too," Rose agreed, putting her hands on the woman's shoulders. "I can't believe it's you. Why here? I mean of all the places in the world? Why here?"

"Oh, what do you call them," the woman said, thinking hard. "The knots, the places that must be or are being or have been. Oh, must you people use so many tenses and have them so limited."

"Tell me about it," Rose joked. "I hated grammar with a passion."

Jack stepped in and took the woman by the shoulder and tugged on her slightly, but she quickly turned around and slapped him across the face.

"And it's you, you're so wrong," the woman shouted, but stopped and shook her head. "No, you're right. Right and wrong at the exact same time, how do you do that?"

"Well, I'm a man of many talents," Jack said smugly, as Jenny touched his face gently, but he simply smiled.

"Flirting, obviously not being one of them," she told him while she crossed her arms and turning away from Jack, before whirling around in a circle and proclaiming in Jenny's face. "It's to come back to life after death."

"What are you talking about," Jenny asked, anchoring the woman down with her hands, and she seemed to accept this.

"Anabiosis," she said as if it was obvious. "Don't ask why it has been important. It is… no, _will_ be important."

"Who are you?" the Doctor demanded stepping forward only to recede as the woman turned toward him. He audibly yelped and wrapped his arms protectively around his neck.

"Don't worry it's only a stun–he's not functioning properly," the woman answered instead.

"What are you-" the Doctor trailed off when Rose started talking.

"Doctor, don't you see this is…" Rose was cut off as a scream ripped through her and she fell to the ground limply. An Ood with glowing, green eyes stood behind her a sparking ball of light poised in his hands. The Doctor charged forward and fell to his knees beside Rose. He ignored Jack and Jenny shouting in anger as the other two figures that had been far away reached them and grabbed them from behind as the woman knelt beside Rose, stroking the side of her face caringly.

"Don't touch her," the Doctor said coldly, fumbling for a moment as he pushed some of Rose's long blonde hair away from her neck and felt for her pulse. It thrummed steadily beneath his fingers as he reached down and touched her chest, his hands covering the golden pendant in the process. He counted her respirations until he was satisfied and went to stroke her face, but found his hand being pressed lightly against the golden pendant carved by his own hand. He looked up to see the woman looking at him sadly.

"You haven't told her," the woman told him softly, while Jack and Jenny were finally released, but hung back as the Ood stepped forward menacingly.

"Told her what?"

"What the token means, not really."

"I will."

"You wait and wait and wait and never get anything done," the woman suddenly shouted, tackling the Doctor and knocking him over before jumping to her feet and running towards the TARDIS. "I must get back home."

She managed a few feet before falling down against a pile of junk.

The humanoid male of the two people stepped over. "It's sad. She's dead."

"No she's not," Jenny said, walking past him and kneeling down beside her, touching her neck gently and feel the erratic beating. She gently tried to coax her awake, but her father stopped her, nudging her with the toe of his sneaker against his.

"Jenny, leave her."

"Rose trusted her," Jenny told him, touching the woman's warm face and smiling gently. "So, I do."

"Rose trusted a Dalek," the Doctor mumbled under his breath, not meaning for the words to come out at all let alone sound so bitter.

"Nephew, take her away in case she wakes up, we don't need her to hurt anyone else," the male said, as the Ood approached and heaved the woman to her feet, and hefted one of her arms over his shoulder and began dragging her away.

"I'm sorry for that, Mate," the woman said, stepping forward and touching the side of Captain Jack's face chummily. "She's a bit off now, you see. I'm Auntie, by the way, and that there is Uncle. And, he's Nephew."

She pointed vaguely in the direction of where the Ood had been moments ago. Even Jack looked slightly repulsed by the state of the two people in their presence. Their clothes were torn and molding, while their bodies just seemed grotesque and pieced together like they were pieced together from a kids broken toys. Taking Auntie's arm in his he pushed up her sleeve and revealed the image of a snake eating its own tail.

"Doctor," Jack called, holding the woman at an arm's length.

"Not now," the Doctor shouted, not taking his eyes off of Rose, leaning over her and touching the pendant. The woman was right he hadn't told Rose properly. She wasn't raised on Gallifrey, so she wouldn't know what the weight of his gift had meant. Picking up the pendant in his fingers and bringing it to his lips, he kissed it briefly before moving to her hand and kissing her knuckles as well.

"Doctor, it's important, she has an Ouroboros tattooed on her arm," Jack shouted.

The Doctor sat up stiffly, not moving at first, but he ran his hands through his hair, as Jenny came over to him and sat on the ground beside Jenny. "I'll watch her, and it's only a few feet away. She won't mind."

Smiling dimly, the Doctor complied, clearing the space between him and Jack in a few bounds. He took the woman's arm in his hand and looked at the other, revealing her two left hands. He blew air tensely through his teeth before turning to Uncle.

"You're made of Time Lords, dead Time Lords," he stated hotly. "How could you."

"House does it, my Love," Auntie replied. "He cares for us, feeds us, loves us."

"Show me," the Doctor said roughly, and the two lead him off, with Jack following close behind, watching Jenny beside Rose until they were out of sight.

~o~

"This is him," Uncle announced showing him to a large vent in the inside of the cavern where thick green smoke was coming out of the ground. "We live on him, breath his air, walk on his back..."

"…And do my will," Auntie and Uncle said together in a sinister voice, their bodies tilting slightly as if the creature inside of them were not used to being limited to such a small area. "Hello, Time Lord, with human companions. I always thought your race to be too pure to cohort with such a meager species."

The Doctor touched Jack behind him a silent motion to tell him to be quiet.

"And, you, a powerful beast enough to control a whole asteroid, yet you allow three living things to sustain themselves through you. If I didn't know better, I'd say you were bored. Although, there must be others. I can practically feel the energy from the minds of Time Lords." The Doctor suddenly perked up leaping to his feet, his voice raising an octave. "So, where are they?"

"You are the only Time Lord here," House said.

"But, I feel them."

"You are the only pure Time Lord," he repeated, as Nephew approached and stood beside the bodies of Auntie and Uncle.

"No, I'm not. Look, I can prove it," the Doctor move toward the Ood, took the translation sphere split it in half and soniced it quickly. "There, a sign of goodwill if you will, well not goodwill considering what you just did," the Doctor said harshly. "Just be glad that I've already killed too many Oods, and I won't add you to the list. Oh, and I wouldn't think about using that to shock anyone ever again it might backfire."

Jack stepped over to the Doctor and whispered in his ear. "Doctor, what are you doing?"

"You'll see," the Doctor murmured back, giving the Ood a final sonic and the device lit up the sound of screaming voices calling for help filled the air. They called for help as the war waged on and the burning started as they tried to escape. Long buried memories resurfaced across the Doctor's face as he tried to block them all out again. He almost managed it, save for the lone tear tracking its way down his face and falling into the dust.

"Time Lords," he breathed softly his words almost hidden underneath the cacophony.

"The liar," Jack muttered, glaring back at Auntie and Uncle as the house released him. "Come on, Doc, we'll get Jenny and Rose and find them."

Jack wrapped his fingers around the Doctor's forearm and tugged him in the direction of the girls, but he stayed in place, as the voiced died down.

"Would you want me back, Jack? If I killed everyone?"

"We'll just have to wait and see," he answered, knowing that it wasn't satisfactory enough for the Doctor, but the Time Lord didn't question further, so he assumed that he had gotten away with it, for now at least. He knew the Doctor liked to pretend that the Time Lords were perfect, but now he was faced with meeting real ones that would more than likely hate him. How did he stand it?

The Doctor cleared the mound of rubbish with Jack while Uncle and Auntie walked away. Jenny was helping Rose to her feet. She smiled and waved to the Doctor, who was now running towards her. He wrapped his arms around her and swept her off of her feet. He felt her arms snaking around his shoulders, holding on for stability, as he swung her around. Laughs surfacing and pain receding from his face.

"Doctor," Rose squealed in surprise, as he knocked the breath out of her, but neither of them cared. He ran his fingers down her back lovingly, but stopped when he touched the scorched fabric at the back of her sweatshirt.

"Rose," he said mournfully. "I'm so sorry."

"It's fine," Rose told him. "I'm fine. Now, let's find those, Time Lords, eh?

"Yeah," the Doctor said softly.

Jack watched appreciatively from the distance, as Jenny came up next to him.

"They're so right for each other," Jenny whispered.

"More than even they know," Jack told her, kissing her softly before going back to watching the Doctor and Rose. His face was so much younger when he was with her. He didn't show any pain or suffering, just love. He couldn't figure out how they had even gotten torn apart in the first place, it didn't seem to him that the Doctor ever gave her much time out of his arms or hand.


	3. Chapter 2

Shoving his hands deep in his pants' pockets, until he was well past his wrists, the Doctor sighed loudly, so that one of his companions would question him. Rose was walking ahead, seemingly intent on finding the woman that had bit him, and Jack and Jenny were trailing behind slightly, giggling, no less. This was not a time for giggling, they needed to be serious. Rose was focusing, on the wrong thing, but still that was heading in the right direction at least.

Opening his mouth to sigh again, the Doctor stopped. Maybe it was for the best that they were ignoring him. Then, at least he could deal with the Time Lords himself. They weren't very content with humans, and Jack's 'difference' would surely send them into a panic. Not to mention Rose being essentially a human and holding the knowledge and perhaps even more time sense than a pure Time Lord in her brain, and Jenny, a Time Lord that didn't change when she regenerated. They'd want to harness that for sure. Even if altering their appearance was a part of their culture it still hurt and felt like dying. However, from the way Jenny described regeneration for her, it was nearly painless, and simply felt like waking up from an extended nap.

He had to admit; even he was a bit intrigued by it.

In the last days of the Time War the Time Lords in the High Council had wanted to give up physical form, and he had been against it, that's why he had to stop them. Maybe the Time Lords here had escaped to this bubble outside the universe to escape what he ended. They might agree with him then, accept him back, not as a genocidal murder, but as a hero. Not that that mattered as much as just being taken back. In fact, a part of him desperately wanted them to hate him when they accepted him. Every human that he met and took with him, was always so accepting of him.

It was because they didn't know the scale of what he had truly done, and he knew it. Their tiny little human brains couldn't handle the idea of two whole civilizations burning. Like they said, the death of one was a tragedy, but the death of a million is a statistic. But, he knew the Time Lords–he may have grown to rebel against them, but he still knew them. His own people, his family and friends, he didn't see them as a group or a statistic; he saw them as the faces of his children he had lost so long ago.

His oldest dying in the first year of the Time War, and his second youngest dying not too long after the fall of the Could Have Been King and his Army of Mean-whiles, while his second, third, and fifth child burned from what he had caused. There was no time to warn them to get out, without the risk of letting out the Daleks and Time Lords alike, to end the rest of the universe.

Needless to say, his children had all seemed to inherit his rebellious streak, much to the annoyance of many higher-ups and teachers on Gallifrey. They were clever; maybe they had been the ones to discover this part of the word. A warmth bubbled up inside of him. It wasn't quite pride, more of a tentative hope, but with hundreds of years away from them, that was all he needed. Smiling softly to himself, he thought about Jenny's laughs anew, from where she and Jack walked behind her.

Donna was right when she said that Jenny would help fill hole in his soul that seemed to radiate pain into both of his hearts. He had just set himself up for more pain and disappointment now that he had let the idea of his children being around here, but he looked at Jenny and Rose, and even Jack and knew that he would make it through. He wasn't alone, and he never would be again. He promised Donna, and Rose had promised him.

If they were here, he'd want them to see this though, Jenny, Rose, and Jack, and how free spirited they all were. Jack's steadfast dedication to everything he put his mind to, Jenny's curiosity and genuine glee to discover new things from a new perspective, and Rose's well, everything about her, he compassion, her love, her knowledge of what was right and wrong, and just everything about her. They were everything that the Time Lords had never taught them or told them not to be.

He grinned. Sometimes he thought that was why he traveled so much, not to see the wonders of the universe, but its people. The way that they discovered how to pull through, and how some realized what had made them fall to improve new generations were amazing. When he thought back on the Time Lords, he saw them as observers and saw the beauty in it, but he never got to dip his toe into the wonder of that beauty until he ran away. They sat for thousands of years just observing, no wonder some of them went mad.

"Doctor," Rose called out to him through his reverie. "Doctor," she repeated, and this time he was able to shake out of it.

"Sorry," he said quietly, still feeling a bit lost in his thoughts, but surfacing fast as Rose stopped in front of him and turned around.

"D'you have your TARDIS key," Rose asked subtly, throwing him a brief look to Jack and Jenny in the behind them and giving the Doctor a slightly worried look. He immediately understood as he started reaching into his pockets and feeling around his suit jacket and shaking his head.

"No, I must have left it in my coat," the Doctor mumbled convincingly, "don't you have yours?"

Rose shook her head. "When we were on a mission at Torchwood in the other universe, I lost it in a rock slide."

Rose gave him an apologetic look, but made sure that the expression was visible over her shoulder in Jack and Jenny's direction. Biting her lip, she watched as the Doctor's tone became slightly exacerbated as her statement.

"Rose, I gave that to you, as a sign of trust and you lost it," he cried, winking slightly with his back turned to the pair behind them.

"Calm down, Doctor," Jack said, taking the bait, albeit slightly perplexedly. "I've got my key, so we won't get stuck."

"No, no," the Doctor said dismissively, acting as if to shrug the former Time Agent off. "Rose and mine are special, they each got a bit of Time energy in them, and it allows us to call the TARDIS if we need to. I didn't trust you when I gave you a key, Captain, so yours is well… a key."

Jack looked visibly deflated, as he pulled out the cool piece of metal from his key pocket and held it in his palm, staring at it.

"Now, Captain, stop it, I'll modify it for you once with get out of here, but for now, we need to get my key from my coat. You could take Jenny and Rose and head down there. Rose knows her way around my pockets and well, Jenny needs a key for herself, doesn't she?" He smiled at his daughter as she beamed back at him.

"Really?" She asked happily.

"Yep, just head on over there and…"

"Hold on, Doctor," Rose said, stepping up to the Doctor and lacing her fingers with his, squeezing a bit harder than what could have been considered friendly. "Don't you think that Jack can handle it? Aren't you afraid that if I go with them I might go wandering off?"

"Not a bit," the Doctor replied, eyeing Rose back and trying to loosen her grip on his hand, but she would yield.

"Well, with everything that's been going on around here, I don't think anyone should be on their own, don't you, Doctor?" Rose asked.

"Absolutely, _Rose_," the Doctor agreed. "Can't have Jack and Jenny alone, so why don't you just…"

"Not, what I meant,_ Doctor_," Rose said with her voice laced in irritation. "You shouldn't be on your own either."

"I won't be," the Doctor said bitingly, "I've got Time Lords around here."

The words fell out of his mouth before he could get control of them. He didn't mean a word of them, and as soon as he realized what he had said, he regretted it. He reached out his hand towards Rose, not trusting his mouth. However, Rose backed away, her eyes filled with hurt.

"Fine," Rose said softly, walking over to Jack and Jenny, the former putting his arm gently around her shoulder and pulling her closely.

Swallowing back jealousy, the Doctor moved forward again. Rose didn't have anywhere to go this time in Jack's arms, but she ignored her best friend's hand reaching out for her to meet him halfway.

"Rose, I'm sorry," he told her again, shuffling his feet and looking at Jenny's face, which was fixed in a glare narrowed at him. "I… I didn't mean it, honestly. I'd love you to come with me. Just like old times."

Shaking her head sadly, Rose backed into Jack and dipped her eyes to the ground.

"Rose, please," the Doctor whispered softly.

"You don't get it, do you, Doctor?" Rose whispered back, her eyes locking on the Doctor's. There wasn't a trace of anger in her eyes, only betrayal. It was worse for him to see her this way. He needed her so badly in more ways than one, but every time he had her close like he wanted deep in his hearts his brain and mouth shoved her away. He couldn't control it. It was like having another person inside his body and controlling his every move.

"I do," he said softly. "I love you, Rose. I really do. Don't you believe me?"

Rose nodded. "But, that's the problem. I know you do, but you don't want me to love you back. You just push me away when it's convenient. You think that you're the only one you're hurting by keeping your distance from me, but you're not. It hurts me too."

"I realize that," the Doctor said honestly, opening his arms to her, but she still wouldn't come to him, so he changed his strategy. "Jack, Jenny, why don't you head on, get the key."

Jack hesitated, not wanting to leave his friend when she might do something to get away from the Doctor, but Jenny caught his sleeve and pulled him away. "It's easier for him to explain while he's alone," Jenny whispered in his ear as they walked away.

The Doctor watched them go. "I love you, Rose," he repeated.

"That's not enough, Doctor," Rose told him, and finally she walked towards him and placed both her hands over each of his hearts and felt them pound beneath her fingers. "I let you love me; you could be fair and let me love you."

Finally, the Time Lord understood and he wrapped his arms tightly around his chest, forcing Rose's hands away. He wanted her to be close to him. She meant more to him than anything else in the world, but he had completely devoured so many people's lives, that he supposed he was always making sure that Rose had a way out if she wanted it. If she ever wanted to leave, he wanted to give her the chance. It didn't matter if Rose shattered his hearts into a million pieces when she left, as long as she was safe and happy. In trying to protect her, the Doctor realized that he had caused her more pain than any other accident they had gotten into in their travels.

"Doctor, I won't hurt you on purpose, you know that."

"I know," the Doctor said with conviction, reaching forward and taking Rose's hands in his. "I never should have made you think that I preferred the Time Lord's to your company. I just… It's been so long, Rose. I need to be forgiven, I do. I just. I… I really. I…"

What was he supposed to say? I'm sorry Rose, but I just can't take your promise of your forever to heart?

"I don't want _you_ to get hurt," the Doctor told her finally.  
"That's not your place to worry," Rose told him, taking his  
hand in his finally, and looking up at him with a forced smile. "Let's go find those Time Lords."

The Doctor nodded once and squeezed Rose's hand, but wasn't surprised at all when she didn't squeeze back. He looked at her pendant again, just above the string where she wore her TARDIS key. He would tell her, as soon as they were out of here and alone.

He'd tell her.

~o~

Jenny bunched her hands together in front of her as they made their way to the TARDIS. Her mind was racing with possibilities so fast that she didn't notice Jack's hand reaching for hers then withdrawing when she didn't respond. Instead she kept walking to the TARDIS with surprising urgency.

"Dad's hiding something," Jenny mumbled, turning swiftly towards Jack, her loose hair flying back and landing in front of her eyes. In frustration, she angrily shoved it behind her ears again and mentally made a note to never wear it free again.

"You're telling me," Jack muttered, putting his hands in front of him and twisting them back and forth.

Jenny nodded, turning back around and seeing the TARDIS off in the distance, as she bounced on her heels and looked happily at Jack. She didn't seem to be pondering anymore, she was just excited. Jack saw the free look in her eyes as they began to sparkle with life and youth. He knew his eyes didn't do that anymore, they had ceased a long time ago. However, when he looked at Jenny he felt like he was getting some of that youth back, reflecting in his own eyes.

Smiling at her, Jack already knew what she wanted, as he reached out, and this time took her hand, as they bolted towards the TARDIS. They matched pace for a good hundred feet before Jenny managed to twist herself free of his hand, laughing and shouting for Jack to beat her as she sprinted away. It only took the ex-time agent a split second to react as he bolted after her and over took her. He spun with his arms wide and grabbed Jenny around the waist and hauled her over his shoulder by her waist and carried Jenny the rest of the way to the TARDIS.

"Put me down, Harkness," Jenny squealed.

"Not gonna happen if you're run away again," he drawled as they reached the TARDIS and he slid his free arm into his pocket and extracted the key and slid it into the lock. He stepped through the threshold with arguing Time Lady in hand and closed the door behind him before setting her down and walking over to the Doctor's coat.

"Not fair using size as an advantage," Jenny pouted as she watched Jack's whole arm disappear inside the Doctor's coat.

"You never complained before," Jack grunted.

Jenny's face scrunched in confusion before shaking her head and deciding not to question him. Instead, she slipped her hand into the Doctor's other pocket and felt items seem to float past her fingers. It almost gave her the sensation of being in water without the wetness. She grasped at something metallic, but when she pulled it out she discovered it was only a girl's barrette. She didn't question what it was doing in there, instead she shoved her arm up to her shoulder into the pocket, but only succeeded in finding several toy cars, a conker, and a yo-yo, some string, two rubber bands, a rotten banana, and twelve push pins– seven of which lodged painfully in her hand.

"Any luck?" Jenny asked Jack, while she pulled gingerly on the pins in her hand.

"Nope," Jack admitted, pulling out another handful of random items and letting them fall to the floor. He walked over to her with his hands shoved deep in his own pockets and over to Jenny. Reaching out and taking her hand in his, he swiftly pulled out the pins.

"Thanks," Jenny muttered, about to stick her hand in her mouth to suck away the blood, but her Jack grabbed it back, reaching into his pocket and dabbing it with a handkerchief.

"Honestly, you're as bad as your father sometimes," Jack muttered.

"Thanks," she replied brightly, before looking back at the coat and sighing. "You had better call him, Jack, but I've got a feeling it's not gonna accomplish anything."

"On it," Jack told her, as he extracted his phone from his pocket and dialed Rose's number, waiting for it to ring. Sitting down on the floor of the console room, Jack pulled Jenny down next to him as she fidgeted with the hem of her dress.

"Rose," he said hurriedly, as he grinned. "Ask the Doctor where his key is… no it's not in his coat… yes we checked… no… yes… Rose! Please, just ask him…"

Sighing at Rose's reply, as he waited for the Doctor to pick up Jack rested his head against the edge of the TARDIS console. Jenny still refused to sit still as she stared around at her surroundings with a mixture of curiosity and fear. Jack laid a gentle hand on hers and smiled at her, pressing a chaste kiss on her forehead, but she drew away.

"Jack," she mumbled worriedly.

Jack opened his mouth to reply to her, but instead held up his hand when he heard the Doctor's voice on the other end of the line. "Doctor... Where is your key? No it's not… of course I looked… and Jenny. Are you sure…"

"Jack," Jenny repeated stepping out to the doors and looking out at the green light streaming in through the windows.

"It's fine, Jenny," he assured her, not really looking up.

"It's not Jack, look at the light." She pointed out to the windows.

Jack drew the receiver and told the Doctor he had to go, slipping the phone back into his pocket, he walked over to the doors. His hands went to the door of the TARDIS and tried to open it, but found it wouldn't budge. He jiggled the lock a few times, panic building up inside of him, but he instinctively forced it down. His eyes drifted to Jenny as he forced his entire weight onto the door of the TARDIS and tried to make it budge.

By the seventh go, Jenny was grabbing onto his arm as he shook from exertion. He grunted to get free from her grip, but she would yield, and she pulled him back into her arms. "That's not doing any good, Jack."

"I can try," Jack muttered.

"No, you're just going to hurt yourself," Jenny told him, placing a gently hand on his already tender arm. "I need you in one piece."

"Fine," Jack muttered, rubbing his shoulder and looking around. "I take it this was in the Doctor's plans–to lock us in here."

"I imagine not," Jenny said, sinking down to the floor, and  
tugging her arms around her legs. "Either way, we're without power and with no way to open the door, so we might as well make the best of it."

She tapped on the grating beside her and Jack slid down next to her, his arm around her shoulder and her head on his chest. "Jack. Something's not right."

"I know, but he wouldn't just leave us. He has a plan."

"That's not what I mean," Jenny admitted, running her hand through her hair and turning her head from side to side. "How long have we been in here?"

Jack prodded her in the ribs playfully, trying to lighten the mood. "Shouldn't I ask you that, Time Lady."

Jack gave a laugh, but stopped when Jenny didn't even try to play along. He looked at her and shoved her shoulder slightly to get some sort of response, but she didn't.

"Jen?"

"Don't you get it?" Jenny nearly shouted. "I don't know! I don't have a clue what time it is. I need to know. It's like I'm blind or at least part-blind. A piece of me is gone." Dread filled Jenny's face as she gripped Jack hard by the shoulders. "What if Dad doesn't accept me? What if he thinks I'm just a Genetic Anomaly again? I can't deal with that. I need him. I want it back, Jack."

"Hush," Jack told her, while he rubbed her back. "That's not gonna happen. Never ever. Your dad loves you and it's unconditional. We'll figure it out, I promise."

"Can I call him back, Jack?" Jenny whimpered, but even as she did so Jack's mobile started ringing and Jack answered it.

"_Jack get yourself and Jenny out of there!_" Jenny heard her father's voice shout loudly through the receiver.

"Can't, Doc, you locked the door," Jack told him in an annoyed voice, getting to his feet and taking Jenny's hand. "We're stuck."

All Jenny heard was her father's screams as the whole room filled with the same green light that had been outside and a pounding on the doors before the whole room shook. She felt herself being pulled forward by Jack, but pain ran through her head and she sunk to the floor before he could catch her. His arms enveloped her protectively and kissed her forehead. "I've got you," she heard him say. "I've got you."


	4. Chapter 3

The Doctor stepped away from the cabinet and instinctively reached for Rose's hand. Dozens of Time Lord's distress calls screamed and echoed in his ears as he tried to take it all in. His whole body seemed to slump and shrink even as a warm hand slipped into his cool one. Looking over to Rose, he saw that she was still refusing to look at him directly in the face; instead she stared at their interlocked hands as if she was questioning them. He squeezed, almost selfishly looking for reassurance, and after a moment's hesitation, she did squeeze back

"I'm sorry, Doctor," she whispered with genuineness, while she looked up at his eyes finally. Brushing her thumb over his hand, she took her other hand and placed it on his cheek.

She ran her thumb under his left eye as a single tear fell from his eyes and let him have his moment of weakness. His hearts clenched tighter in his chest as he saw the level of devotion in her eyes to him, even now. Leaning into her touch, he covered her hand on his like a lifeline and tried to regain his composure.

"It's okay to hurt," she whispered to him, blinking hard and forcing a few of her own tears to fall to show him that he wasn't grieving for his loss alone. She was there to spread the weight and the pain with him just like she always would be. He gave a mirthless laugh and bit down hard on the side of his cheek and tasted the iron tang of blood enter his mouth, but he felt none of the pain.

Swallowing hard her said, "They would have told me it was wrong."

"You don't live by their standards Doctor," Rose told him. "You never have. You've been so focused on trying to regain forgiveness that you forgot why you left there in the first place, and why you had to end the war."

"I never told you exactly why," the Doctor protested, but Rose stopped him.

"You did," Rose told him and took his hand. "It was way back, when you were still getting used to this face. About three trips after New Earth, you came down with that fever, remember?"

The Doctor nodded slowly, thinking hard about when he had woken from a rare bout of sleep in the library, burning hot and freezing cold at the same time, while Rose knelt next to him, desperate to get him to wake. He vaguely remembered her leading him to his room and laying him back on the covers and soothing him as she removed his shirt and used a cool rag across his head, chest and shoulders to try and break the fever. The rest was blurry, but when he had finally recovered, the only thing he clearly remembered was a tiny grain of knowledge in the back of his mind that she had never left his side in the countless days he was in his stupor.

"You had nightmares," Rose told him. "You screamed out and explained everything, how they wanted to rid themselves of the rest of the Universe and rise only in spirit and mind. You did the right thing, Doctor. You don't need to seek forgiveness for that. The rest of the universe and every other one are safe because of what you did."

"Is the mass genocide of an entire race worth that of another?" The Doctor asked.

"You forgave John, and told him he had done the right thing to the Daleks," Rose prompted him to remember his dead human brother who had killed the Daleks to save the rest of existence.

Looking like he was about to reply, the Doctor jumped back suddenly, his hand still entwined with Rose's but her other slipping from his face. He ran his left hand through his hair frantically. His mind was racing now, as he bounced on the balls of his feet and looked all around him, dragging Rose's along with him.

"I'm the last," he said, a touch of mourning to his voice but the rest of it was wandering with his racing mind. Rose tried to anchor him back down, by placing a hand on his shoulder, but he wouldn't comply. "They know that, so what are they gonna do. They need more Time Lords. And, the house-thing, what's with that? There are too many things going on here, Rose."

Rose opened her mouth to reply, but he was still talking. "If you were repairing people with Time Lords and there were no more left what would you do?"

"Find more," Rose said instantly, and giving him a reassuring smiled, thinking that the Doctor must be thinking of using him. "That's not gonna happen, not ever."

"No, they're not," the Doctor's agreed, but he kept going. "But they're still gonna try, so if you were trying to get out of a smaller universe pinched off from the main universe where would you go?" He paused for a long moment. "And, what would you use?"

The Doctor watched Rose, as her eyes grew wide and she reached into her pocket and threw her phone at the Doctor, who caught it dexterously as they started running towards the TARDIS.

~/~

The pain from Jenny's head slowly left her as she opened her eyes and looked up at Jack kneeling down next to her. His hands were behind her back just under her shoulder blades as he coaxed her to her feet, hugging her tightly. She would have normally been more than content with their configuration, but the strain in her muscles forced her to readjust herself and wriggle free from his grip with a tired groan.

"Well, this is fun," he said with a grin. "Sorta like old times?"

She smiled at him as consolation and got her feet brushing the dust off of her torn dress and out of her loose hair.

"You okay?" he asked with concern lacing his voice.

"Yeah," Jenny replied looking around her and touching the console. He seemed to almost relax at those words, but his features fell back into anxiety as she continued. "She's warm again, only different." She looked at Jack. "Time's gone."

"Meaning?" Jack asked, his face being lit by an acid, green glow emanating from the console, casting long dark shadows over his face and giving a small glimpse at what his true age might mean.

Jenny opened her mouth to explain but she was cut off by the TARDIS's long pained groan and a chilling voice echoing around them.

"_It means that I have control of everything in this ship, including you two,_" the voice said, and the room got noticeable cooler, as Jack wrapped his arms protectively around Jenny and leaned his chin down on the top of her head as if to shield her. Jenny knew he was trying to be brave for her, but she ran her hand up the outside of his shirt and felt his heart pounding hard beneath her fingers. The sensation was almost more comforting than if she though he was just being brave. She looked had him and knew that she could be brave despite her fear as well.

"Who are you?" Jenny demanded, lifting her chin up, still with Jack pressing down on her.

"_I am House,_" it replied, while Jack felt something tingling through his entire body. He pushed the sensation out of his mind with little effort, but it left him with an odd hollow feeling he couldn't quiet trace, but he ignored it for the time being, focusing all his attention on the bodiless voice booming all around them. "_And, I wouldn't be so quick to protect her, Harkness, because I've suspended your ability to revive yourself._"

"Doesn't matter," Jack shouted, while he pulled Jenny even closer as if to prove his point, but Jenny pushed away.

"I can regenerate," she whispered in his ear, while she stepped back, keeping her distance from Jack. However, he refused to let her hand leave his. "Jack, don't."

"Promised your dad I'd look after you," Jack told her, thinking about when the Doctor had told Rose the same thing about her mum while they were in Japan right before the Game Station and the Daleks.

"_Silence,_" House boomed, obviously annoyed by how little attention he was getting from his captives. He shook the floors angrily and knocked them both to the ground separating their hands from the shock and turning his attention to Jenny as electricity shot up from the floor and enveloped her.

Gritting her teeth, Jenny forced herself into the soldier's mentality she was born with and didn't cry out as Jack's shouts echoed in her ears even as the pain stopped. Forcing her eyes open after she didn't remember closing them, she saw Jack pounding on an invisible bubble surrounding her. Smiling softly in a hope to calm him down, Jenny placed a hand on her side of the bubble. She looked into Jack's bright blue eyes and made the anger fade away as her silent pleading forced him to mimic the gesture.

"Let her out," Jack demanded deathly quiet.

"_Why should I?_" House asked. "_I could kill both of you where you stand and not think twice about it, so tell me. Why?_"

"Because I said so," Jack spat, as the energy field was only made stronger as he looked to at Jenny to see her struggling to keep her eyes open. She opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out. Her hand slowly slipped down, while she struggled to hold it up against his. She mouthed his name and, 'I love you,' before she curled in on herself and fell into unconsciousness.

"_Because I said so,_" it mimicked. "_Is that all you can come up with? I'm disappointed in you. I thought that a Time Lord Traveling with humans was rare, but I'm shocked to see that he picked one so dull and stupid. Don't you want to free her?_"

Jack glared at the ceiling and looked back at Jenny watching her chest failed to rise as House drained yet more air out of her cell. Reason was trying to evade him, but he clawed it back. He needed to think. The voice he was listening to was familiar, not the sound, but the tone, the deranged villain tone. The kind that didn't kill and destroy from revenge or spite, but the kind that did it for sport.

"You need to be kept occupied," Jack stated. "That's why you had Auntie, Uncle and Nephew. You need a challenge."

House didn't reply with words, but the bubble around Jenny made a hissing noise as air rushed into the space and Jack knelt down beside her, ensuring that her hearts were both beating and her breaths were starting up again. He thanked the heavens that she was Time Lady and was able to sustain herself for longer than a human. Lifting her into his arms, while she remained unconscious, he vowed not to let her out of his sight.

"How 'bout a nice game of chase," Jack offered, while he looked down at Jenny, seeing her fight for consciousness, but losing against the strain her body had been put under. Could they both survive in a TARDIS that was trying to kill them both? They had to. He promised. Touching her cheek and kissing her lips while he lifted her to his face, Jack drew a deep breath through his nose.

"Or are you afraid you'll lose?" His tone was perfectly gaged, condescending enough to elicit a challenge, but weak enough to make it so that that house didn't think he was capable of winning.

"_Are you suggesting a challenge, Time Agent?_"

Jack ignored the title form a lifetime ago and nodded. "I am."

"_At what stake?_"

"Our lives," Jack responded swiftly, suddenly thankful that Jenny couldn't see him now–giving into the enemy. She'd never let him live it down otherwise.

"_That's not enough_."

"It's everything to us," Jenny whispered, looking up at Jack and smiling at him.

He didn't want to know what she saw when she looked at him now. A weak normal human, while she was so much more. Immortality was something that was a part of him now, hearing that it was gone made him feel incomplete. Now he understood what Jenny meant when she said that she couldn't see the Time Lines had felt like to her. He couldn't jump out at anything and protect her now, he had to be careful or he'd lose her either way. Or worse, he might leave her.

_Was that cowardly?_ He questioned himself. He had been more than willing to put his life on the line even before he was immortal, especially after the Doctor, but had his immortality made him soft in the long run? Was he leaning on it like a crutch?

"_But nothing to me,_" House said bitingly to Jenny while she twisted from Jack's grasp and slid to the ground. She leaned heavily on his shoulder to steady herself, when she started to sway and wrapped her arms around his waist.

"We'll be your slaves," Jack said, looking down at a disbelieving Jenny, but he didn't miss a beat. "Give us ten hours to try and survive your methods and we'll do what you want, but if we escape you let us go free, return to where you came from and get the Doctor and Rose."

"_Rules?_"

"No taking away the air or just killing us out of the blue, make us work against something," Jenny said, "something to hunt us down."

She gulped nervously and looked at Jack as Nephew began walking down from one of the corridors.

"_Very well,_" House boomed. "_You have ten minutes head start, so I strongly suggest you run._"

~/~

Trainers kicked up dirt as Rose and the Doctor skidded to a halt as the TARDIS disappeared in a swirling cloud of green smoke. He opened his arms wide as he ran to the area as if he could envelop it in his arms, but by the time he reached it his fingers met thin air and even the smoke seemed to run from him. He fell to his knees, while Rose kneeled beside him and drew him closely to her.

"Come on, Doctor," she said pulling him up by his arm and walking him towards where they had come from to find the woman again. "We're not going to find them by pining around here. She'll know what to do."

The Doctor did respond right away, instead he just followed Rose stiffly, letting her take the lead for once. It wasn't like his lead was doing any good. It had gotten Rose shocked and angry at him, and Jack and Jenny missing. He shoved his hands in his pockets and nodded.

"Right," he said, taking a deep breath and nodding. "Why do you trust her?" He asked the question quietly, but deliberately as he leveled his eyes on Rose, while they walked. "You acted like you remembered her from somewhere."

"I do, yeah," Rose agreed, fishing his hand out of his pocket and lacing it with hers, so that he walking closer to him. He looked at her questionably at first, but she shook her head, and smiled at him. "I'm not mad, if that's what you're wondering," she said, deftly trying to change the subject. "I'm sorry about earlier. I know you miss them. I shouldn't have held that against you."

"Who is she?" the Doctor asked, ignoring her apology.

"You need her to tell you," Rose told him, looking at his eyes, and seeing the confusion resting there. "Look, you know I trust you, right?"

"Yes."

"Well, trust me for once then, Doctor," she asked of him.

"I do," he replied immediately.

"Good," Rose said, brushing her thumb in a comforting, constant motion up and down his hand, while they walked. "I really am sorry, Doctor."

She reminded him of when he had taken her to see her father and all her really wanted her to do was apologize to him, after everything she had done. That was how they solved things from then on, because they knew that neither of them would ever leave the other behind, so that settled for mutual understanding. He promised not to leave her and she promised to give him her forever, and if any of them ever so much as faltered on that trust those two words always seemed to draw them back. Maybe that was where they faltered the most, a relationship built on only two words wasn't built to endure.

"You shouldn't be," the Doctor replied, looking over at her, as they followed the direction Rose led them in, while the word, 'thief,' echoed around them.

She looked down at her shoes and shook her head, swinging their conjoined hands between them and forcing a wan smile. She was beginning to remember why she had been so hesitant to go beyond friendship with the Doctor. He had so much riding on his shoulders and perhaps she was foolish to think that she could take even a fraction of that away from him. However, he did keep sending her mixed signals, declaring his love with a pendant he carved himself and then trying to push her away for not being Time Lord enough for him.

"I don't know what to say," Rose whispered so soft that she wondered if the Doctor could have heard her, but he must have because he tightened his grip around her hand as they kept walking.

"I… I do," the Doctor said, not taking his eyes off Rose as the shouting in the distance got louder. "I mean, I think I know what to do."

He remembered what the woman had told him, as he reached into his pocket and pulled out another pendant, the same size as hers only with a blank face. He dangled it from his fingers for a moment before placing it in Rose's hand and closing her fingers around it. "I never did tell you the whole meaning of that gift." He pointed vaguely in the direction of her neck. "It's more than just my love expressed to you, it's yours to me. I didn't tell you before. I almost thought it wasn't necessary."

Giving him a slightly broken look, Rose opened her mouth to speak, but the Doctor stopped her and gave a harsh chuckle. "Let me finish, please?" He waited a beat to see if she would comply before continuing. "I _didn't_, but I do now. The pendants are almost like wedding vows and rings on Earth. They're promises a Time Lord gives his or her mate before bonding. It was how we marked a union between a man and his woman."

Rose was quiet for a long time, her expression completely blank before she shook her head and burst out laughing. She turned around, and walked backwards for a second before catching him briefly around the middle and smiling into his chest. Stunned, he embraced her back, as they continued to make progress toward the woman.

"Rose?" he questioned, as she released him, but continued to hold his hand.

"You can't make anything simple, can you?" Rose asked, looking down at the blank pendant in her hands and knowing instinctively that she would have to carve her love for the Doctor into it and give it back to him. The Gallifrean part of her brain would allow her to do so under the Doctor's guidance as soon as they were back on the TARDIS.

"Is that a yes then?" The Doctor asked, running a hand through his hair but a hopeful grin spread across his lips in the knowledge that she would only answer one way.

"Of course, you daft man," Rose replied, kissing him quickly as they turned the corner to reveal the woman sitting with her arms crossed in the cage.

"Well it certainly took you long enough," she pouted, looking over at the two of them with mock disdain.

Rose gave her an apologetic look before reaching into the Doctor's jacket and extracting his sonic screwdriver before he could protest. She threw it up in the air to flaunt it in front of him for a moment before she adjusted the settings and opened the lock on the cage. The woman got to her feet and hugged Rose before sticking her tongue out at the Doctor.

"Thank you, Rose," she replied. "He would have made me wait in here and explain myself to him. After all these years you'd think he would learn to trust me."

"Tell me about it," Rose replied, but she showed the woman the blank pendant, and smiled. "I think he's finally starting to wear down though."

"Oh, I told him he would have to do that," she shouted loudly, snatched the pendant up, and looked over Rose's shoulder at the Doctor, who was standing with his mouth agape. She rushed over to him and snapped it shut by pushing his head down and knocking his chin again his chest. "No, you'll get flies."

"W-what," he stuttered, and took the pendant back from her and shoved it back in Rose's direction, as she rolled her eyes and tucked it back in her pocket. "Rose, that's private."

"Nothing's private with her, Doctor," Rose pointed out, as she stepped beside the woman and smiled up at her. "Go on, now you're the one not being open. Tell him."

The woman scrunched up her face and thought hard for a moment. "You're my theif."

"I haven't stolen anything," the Doctor shouted.

"You stole me, all those years ago, and I took you as well," the woman told him, before whirling around and looking at Rose for help. "What do you call me? You're insides call me 'mistress,' but your outsides call me… T-mmm….Ta-"

Rose took the woman's shoulder, as she kept trying to sound out the word like a child learning to read for the first time. "T-ar-dis,"

"TARDIS?" the Doctor questioned disbelievingly.

"TARDIS," the woman yelled triumphantly and mimicked the sounds of her Time Rotor while she stepped forwards towards him and took him by the shoulders. "I'm your TARDIS. You saved me, and I saved you."

"You called me a thief," the Doctor said slowly.

"You did steal her," Rose pointed out, softly, putting a hand on the Doctor's arm while she coaxed him to sit on the floor and the TARDIS in the woman's body to do the same.

"Borrowed," he said in an exasperated tone.

"As if," the TARDIS scoffed. "I would never let you give me back. A Type-40 TARDIS was already so out of date and so worn; I belonged in a museum and you still thought I was…"

"…the most beautiful thing I ever saw," the Doctor murmured nostalgically. "That was from my first moment touching your console with all…"

He trailed off; thinking about his younger years, only two hundred some odd years of his life had passed him by when he found her, hidden among the rubble and debris. Her wires were all burnt out and she appeared to have seen more than a few crashes and rough scrapes. But, he felt the beginning of a psychological matrix forming between the two of them, like she was reaching out to him.

"They trapped you," he heard Rose, whisper and he looked up to see her touching the TARDIS's hand. "It should…"

"Have been impossible, but I suppose," the Doctor started, but he was cut off.

"He supposes that it would be possible if they deleted the TARDIS matrix first and fed off of the remaining artron energy," she explained before the Doctor could.

"He put you in there to die," he whispered touching her face for the first time, she tolerated it briefly before pushing her away.

"No, focus," she tells him sternly before looking back to Rose, who was similarly disheartened. "Don't be like that, we're talking and that's what matters and we need to get back the wrong man and the other yellow girl."

"Rose is pink and yellow," the Doctor pointed out, forcing a smile and taking both Rose's and the woman's hand as they ran off, but the TARDIS was cut off from a pain shooting through her chest as Rose reached over and caught her.

"Mistress," Rose said almost instinctively, before shaking her head and helping her back to her feet. "What is it?"

"She's dying, Rose," the Doctor reminded her pointlessly, helping to steady her to spread the weight of the woman before she shoved away.

"No," the TARDIS shouted. "I'm fine, I just need to get back to the place where I landed and I can seek my place again."

"Right," the Doctor said, unconvincingly. "Come on then… erm… Rose called you…"

"Mistress, yes, so, she's my Wolf and I'm her Mistress," she replied a matter-of-factly. "You are my thief and I'm your…"

"No, stop," the Time Lord shouted, but she had already started.

"Sexy," she said bobbing her head slightly and giggling with Rose.

"B-but, Rose is here," he stammered, trying to regain his position and losing fast as they set a slower pace for 'Sexy's' sake and headed back to the junkyard where they first came here.

"Don't think I haven't notice the way you practically drool over her console, Doctor," Rose said, nudging the TARDIS in the side softly. "It's nothing new to me." She bent down close and whispered softly in her ear. "He thinks he's so clever."

"What was that?" the Doctor asked in a hurt voice.

"Oh, nothing," the TARDIS replied casually, while the walked.

The Doctor rolled his eyes and stared at Rose's and the TARDIS's linked arms and knew this was going to be a long day.


	5. Chapter 4

The TARDIS corridors stretched endlessly ahead of Jack and Jenny, as they sprinted forward, the latter taking the lead and the former taking a defensive position at their rear. Jenny's arguing had fallen on deaf ears, when she tried to convince him that there was no way that house would have allowed Jack's gun to work in the TARDIS and that it would probably end catastrophically.

Slowing their speed to a small jog, when they reached a cross between two tunnels, Jenny chose the one on the left randomly. Looking all around her, she noted that there wasn't an immediate threat and that it would be to their advantage to slow down to a walk and conserve their energy. She reached back for his hand at first, but instead took hold of his shoulder and began to gently try to calm the tension in his muscles. Slowly, she felt the hardness in there slowly become softer, and she watched as the rest of him relaxed as well, starting at both of his shoulders and down his arms and eventually to his fingers of his left hand as it reached out and took Jenny's. She was more than happy to take it, slowly stroking her fingers over the skin between his first finger and thumb.

It didn't go beyond her notice though, that Jack's eyes still refused to meet hers and his jaw set in hard line. His knuckles had a strangle hold around the grip of his gun, and his blue eyes kept darting around him. Attempting to get closer to him, she slowly entwined her whole arm around his and finally got his eyes to land on hers. He gave her an almost apologetic gaze, but his lips couldn't form a smile to match the timid one of her face, so she let it fall away.

She had noticed before how much she was like her father, but now he seemed even more so. Part of her was glad to think of him in that way, but the other part was slightly worried. Jack didn't back down from anything, and she knew that losing his ability to revive himself wouldn't change that, but she didn't want him risking anything, not for her sake. She felt him squeeze back gently before she looked at his face and gave him a knowing look.

"Put it away, Jack," Jenny said gently, motioning to the gun in his hand and closing her hand over it. "I don't want to risk firing it in here, not with that thing controlling everything," she told him.

She pressed down on the metal warmed by Jack's hand and guided it back into the holster at his side, and smiled at him when he didn't resist. "Thank you," she whispered, taking his hand in hers and continuing to walk at a casual pace. However, she could feel Jack edging forward, trying to push her faster, like a horse waiting to be let out of the gate, pawing at the ground.

"We've got to move faster, Jenny," Jack grated, while he edged past her, pulling her along, but she anchored him back.

"Why?" she asked, letting go of his hand and crossing her arms.

"Because, that Ood, is right behind us," Jack stated.

"Or, it could be right in front of us," Jenny pointed out, getting him to stop, while she ran a hand down the side of his arm. "Look, we _do_ need to keep moving—we'd go mad otherwise, but we also need to be calm, so we have the energy to act when it comes down to it. We could be burning ourselves out running towards the enemy."

"But, we've been going straight," Jack protested.

"Yes, we are, but are the corridors? You know how much the TARDIS likes to move stuff around," Jenny reminded him. "Just last night you were wandering around the corridors with your legs crossed trying to find the toilet."

Jack grinned, just like Jenny expected him to as she stepped forward with her arms still crossed. "All right," he conceded, running his hands down his sides in a frustrated motion.

"Good, so what d'you wanna talk about?" Jenny said, whirling around suddenly and taking Jack's hand, as she gave him a cheerful smile and kissed his cheek.

"We're facing a deadly threat and you, Jenny Har-Anderson, want to make small talk," Jack accused, almost slipping with her last name, but he recovered quickly placing his hand between her shoulder blades and pulling her closely. "That's what I missed about you."

"Nothing else?" Jenny asked cheekily, while leaning into his shoulder and grinning at his lighter mood.

"Everything else," Jack amended, pulling his arm protectively around her and holding her close.

"Oh really?" Jenny taunted. "Like what?"

Jack gave a noncommittal shrug and tightened his grip around her. She enjoyed the warmth from his human blood pumping through his veins warming her body. She imagined that it should have been unpleasant, like being wrapped in a blanket in the middle of summer, but it wasn't. It was like sitting next to a fire, letting the flames dance before her eyes and the warm everything the light touched.

"Just, you, your life, your youth, your spirit," Jack listed off endearingly, thinking back and smiling.

Jenny grinned and twirled her hair around her finger and batted her eyelids at him, taking pleasure in the slight hitch in his breath that she felt while leaning against him.

"That's funny. I missed the same things about you," Jenny told him looking down at their conjoined hands and swung them between them, while he tightened his grip and smiled.

"Hardly youthful," Jack told her with a twinkle in his eyes.

"Very youthful," Jenny retorted. "'It takes a long time to become young,' Picaso said that," Jenny said cheerfully. "An old Earth artist. Can you believe it? Something that a simple human male says can be so true."

"I'm a human male, you know," Jack teased looking over at her face, noting the light that was growing there, the more that she rambled. He could tell there was something else churning away in her mind while she spoke. It somehow allowed her to focus, but he was far from understanding how. He had seen the Doctor doing the same thing.

"It's hard to forget, all those hormones churning away inside of you, it's a wonder you don't go mad. It's a wonder you don't send me mad," Jenny babbled, while she ran her hands down her sides and tried to focus, and caught Jack's smirk. "Shut up—" she shook her head. "—Jack, I took control of it a long time ago, but it's weird, being so young and not so young at the same time. I was born into puberty, Jack. How do you think that feels?"

Jack opened his mouth to explain, but Jenny cut him off, her hand flying over his mouth.

"I'll tell you how it feels, con-fu-sing," she said, punctuating each syllable by prodding him in the chest. "I snogged a boy within my first few hours of life, then I pointed a gun at him and tied him up."

"Remind me never to get you angry," Jack muttered, while Jenny continued.

"He was rubbish though," Jenny admitted. "Like I said, _hormones_. They drive you mental. Luckily, I'm a Time Lady and completely in control. It helps you as well. It makes it so you don't want to jump all over me every waking second."

Jack mumbled against her hand, but she pushed down harder.

"I wouldn't finish that sentence if I were you, Harkness." She offered him a wink before she pulled her hand away still walking, still moving, still together.

She did an inventory in her head of any assets that she had, but it only got her depressed. A gun that would probably kill them, their clothes—hers torn and scorched form the electricity—and their spirits, which might fall at any moment. Jenny drew a deep breath through her nose and ignored her logistical thoughts. She was in a TARDIS being inhabited by a creature that shouldn't exist in a universe that shouldn't exist with Captain Jack, a man that shouldn't exist. Logic didn't matter here.

"The very same Jenny I remember," Jack exclaimed cheerfully, while he hugged her out of nowhere.

She squealed and pushed against him, until she realized he wasn't just hugging her, he was holding her back. Turning her head around, she saw the floor had opened up in front of them, while they had been joking. Biting her lip and looking back up at Jack, she saw the humor that she had worked so hard to create fade away and die, replaced by the stone hardness that had been there before.

"It almost took you," Jack breathed. "It promised."

"But, it didn't Jack, focus on that," she whispered lovingly, taking his face in both of her hands and pulling him close.

"_I could have,_" House snarled in an ever deepening voice. "_I will do, and you won't have any way to stop me._"

"We had a deal," Jack shouted back, moving away from Jenny, while he stared up at the ceiling with malevolence, but kept his arm firmly wrapped around hers.

"_And, you believed me, how predictable. Really, the Time Lord should pick his friends more wisely,_" House boomed.

"Jack's the best," Jenny shot back, tightening her arm around Jack, while they turned around, so that she was taking the lead, getting ready to pull him nervously down the corridor, away from the hole, to take away any chances of falling it. "You know that, otherwise you wouldn't want to break the rules."

The lights flickered slightly, and the temperature dropped a few degrees. "Nervous then, eh?" Jenny asked triumphantly, while the floors trembled angrily and Jack grabbed her hand and whispered for her to stop in her ear. However, she ignored him and kept talking. "You're afraid that you'll lose for once, after killing all those Time Lords you think that you're invincible, but you're not."

"_Neither are you,_" House said coolly and the floor opened up beneath her feet.

The Doctor stalked around, occasionally licking the walks or sniffing the ground, or combinations of both while Rose and the TARDIS walked well ahead of him. They hadn't stopped talking since they had departed from the cell, and it was beginning to wear on his nerves. The TARDIS was his ship and Rose was his—Rose. Rose wasn't the TARDIS's or the other way around. He should have been what was holding them together, not the one that they were pushing away.

"It's not like that and you know it," the TARDIS said, whirling around suddenly and catching his shoulders. He tried to wiggle out of her grip, but she wouldn't yield.

"I don't know…" the Doctor trailed off as she shook him hard.

"Yes, you do know what I'm talking about, Doctor. She is my Wolf, I took her under my wing and showed her all of time and space and watched to see what her great, big, single human heart would do with it, and she saved the world. Yes, we're close."

The Doctor hung his head and looked away, while Rose stood in the background, trying to think of what to say.

"But, you are my Doctor, my thief, my pilot, my whole life pivots around you, my Wolf doesn't change that. I am bigger on the inside even in—no especially in a human body. You know and I can spread love in well more than two directions and still have plenty for you," she told him gently caressing his cheek and kissing him, gently this time, before whimpering slightly and pulling back. She grabbed her side and cried out, while the Doctor caught her and lowered her to the ground, gently stroking her face.

"My TARDIS," he whispered, before giving a small genuine laugh and added. "My Sexy."

She grimaced at him and moved her face away from his frantic hands. "No, you're so nostalgic in this body. Focus."

He shook his head and sat cross-legged next to her, while he ran his fingers through her curly dark hair. She whimpered in pain, but forced her hands to go to her sides, as she struggled to get to her feet. Despite the Doctor's protestations, she reached out to Rose who immediately took her hands and helped her up.

Rose wrapped her right arm around the woman's waist and helped her to stay upright.

"Not that much farther," Rose uttered to her.

"He's taking a long time to figure it out," the TARDIS complained, and the Doctor raised a questioning eyebrow.

"You know what's going to happen then?"

"I know the idea you will come up with and therefor, Rose knows, because I'm sharing my thoughts with her—it helps with the strain," the TARDIS admitted haughtily, leaning on Rose and closing her eyes for a moment. "Doesn't seem to be helping much at the moment though."

"Don't talk like that," Rose told her, tightening her grip on her more in desperation than in thinking that she alone could keep the woman standing if she got much worse.

"Why don't you tell me?" the Doctor asked, ignoring Rose.

The TARDIS took a deep breath and eyed the Doctor for a moment. "That would twist the time lines, I can't. I just can't. You should understand that."

Opening his mouth to protest, the Doctor quickly snapped it shut when he knew there was no point. It shouldn't be this hard, but it felt like he had more to lose than he ever. Otherwise, it would have just been a normal rescue mission, just like any other day. But, now even if he won, he would still lose. His TARDIS. His beautiful TARDIS, his constant companion and ship, she had been there through the hardest times in his life and never told him that something was impossible, when the rest of the world did. Sure, she tried to hold him back sometimes, and she was a bit over-bearing at times, but she did it out of love. They were _talking_ with mouths, like they had never been able to do before.

"Okay, well, why don't you let me go and explore ahead? Rose will stay with you, won't you, Rose?"

Rose nodded hastily and smiled up at the TARDIS, while the Doctor and Rose both helped her to sit back on the ground, with her feet sticking out from under her. She didn't think she would ever affirm to the Doctor ever offering for her to stay behind, but she looked at the TARDIS and knew that she had to. She was connected to the TARDIS in a way that was even more intimate than Rose's connection with the Doctor.

"You're leaving me behind again," the TARDIS said sheepishly, while her face seemed to grow ever paler.

"I've never left you behind," he retorted half-heartedly.

"All the time," she said weakly. "And, now, even when I have legs you do the same. I can't even do that thing with your legs that you always babble about. That word that means so much to you and the Wolf. The word that the wrong man missed and the yellow girl loves."

"Run," the Doctor told her gently, while he laced her fingers through hers and squeezed.

"Yes, you run around on legs and shout and talk and live and bring home strays, while I sit and wait for you to come home. I take you everywhere and anywhere, but I can never go with you, until now, and you leave. You promised when you first touched my console. You told me that I was beautiful, and then you promised to make me fly so fast and you would never get rid of me," she whispered quickly, her voice dropping off lightly, but the words still carried more power than the Doctor had expected.

"Yeah, but you know what? I always come home," the Doctor told her with a smile. "I always come back for you, and you're always there waiting for me. Show me that nothing has changed, alright? Show me you're still the same ol' gal I fell in love with all those years ago."

The TARDIS nodded, as she closed her eyes and sighed, while Rose moved closer to her and put her head in her lap. "Sorry, Doctor, but I coaxed her into a gentle sleep. It's better for her now."

"I know," the Doctor said, as he stepped back a bit, edging in the direction of the area they had come home in. "See you later."

"And, you," Rose replied, as she watched the Doctor disappear behind the corner and looked back at the woman holding the TARDIS consciousness within her body. She didn't even know her name, she realized, and yet she already owned the woman more than she could ever imagine.

"You're going to be just fine," Rose whispered. She had meant the words to comfort herself more than anything, but even so, the woman seemed to respond to her. She turned slightly and half-opened her eyes to look up at Rose.

"Help me," she pleaded softly, shaking from trying to fight Rose gently trying to coax her into a heavy sleep.

The two words cut through her heart and all she could do was nod, as she reached down and touched the TARDIS's temples with her fingers.

~/~

Rose had been taking everything so well, when all he seemed to do was get more and more confused. He couldn't say he was surprised, she had always been this way, from the first day they met. She had always been showing him something he couldn't see the need to see, things from a human perspective, the need for love, and the battle scared man who was really just a scared little boy.

He was still wearing leather the first time that she really showed him how much he meant to her and how they were meant to be together.

_He had woken up screaming, not for the first time since the war, but this time it  
was different. This time there was a gently pressure on his hand and warm eyes staring down at him in the darkness. She smiled at him, that grin that could make a lion roll over and be a kitten. The look in her eyes told him everything he needed to know as she gave him a final squeeze of the hand and left without another word. That little pink and yellow human had always been so in tune to his moods no matter what, and she knew right then and there that he wouldn't have spoken to her about it. And, she accepted that. She let him go about the rest of their days together, not mentioning it, but she always made sure that her hand was never out of his reach._

Then, after he changed, she changed as well, syncing herself back to him, getting to know the moods and actions that went along with her new, new Doctor. The time between nightmares lasted longer this time, the regeneration and her presence allowing some sort of relief to take place, but they returned after the Olympics, when he was forced to leave her. He dreamed of losing her and never seeing her. He dreamed of an unseen wind taking him away from her, while she was pulled in the other direction.

So, he did what he never thought he could do, he crept into her room without knocking, toed off his shoes and slid into her bed over the covers, while she lay under, moving slowly as not to wake her. He gently draped an arm over her body to assure himself of her existence before allowing himself to fall into a deep sleep.

The next morning he opened his eyes to see her staring at him, a blanket thrown over his shoulders and their hands clasped between them. She smiled, kissed his forehead, and told him it wasn't real.

Smiling he agreed with her and looked around her room quickly, taking it all in as he got to his feet and let his hand slide from hers and into his pocket. The pile of dirty laundry rested in the corner of her room, and he made a point of raising his eyebrows at it, knowing that she would notice him. She said she was sorry, and that she would get around to cleaning it as soon as they caught a break, but he told her they couldn't. That he was trying a new setting to conserve power and had shut down the washers. They'd have to go to her mum's to get it clean. He lied to her so easily, because he needed to be somewhere closed in for once. He didn't want to run away, he just wanted her; he wanted her closed in by four walls, just for a little while. 

He wanted her where he knew she would be safe.

The guilt stayed with him even to this day. He forced himself to think of her every day, as his torture, wouldn't let himself forget her, and carried a picture of the two of them in his pocket right next to his left heart. Even now, he couldn't forgive himself for what he did. The day she fell into the void was the day he realized that he was the problem in her life. It wasn't her who was the jeopardy friendly human, he was just dangerous.

He had told Rose that a storm was approaching; he didn't know it was his own.

The now familiar feeling of tears burning the backs of his eyes came to the Doctor's attention. Blinking hard to try to get rid of the sensation, did nothing but send the rivulets pouring down his face, while he tried fervently to wipe them away. He ran his fingers through his hair and shook his head, lowering it and staring at his feet while he forced himself not to turn around.

"No need to be sad, Love," a voice said from behind him, and two different hands rested on his shoulder. "It was always meant to be."

He turned around to see Auntie and Uncle standing behind him and limping closer to him. The Doctor glared at them and went to turn around, but Auntie caught his arm and pulled him back around.

"No need to be that way," she said, "it's your we're dying fault anyway."

"I haven't done anything," the Doctor grated, walking away when Auntie keeled over. Running over to her out of instinct, he let out a small squeak of surprise and felt for her pulse. "What?"

He turned to Uncle, who shrugged a bit sadly. "House sees no more Time Lords, and no more TARDIS. He needs more. So, we die."

"You can't just die," he said in exasperation as Uncle hobbled around for a few moments, muttering something unintelligible before collapsing on the ground with a calm groan. Feeling his neck like he did Auntie, the Doctor confirmed he was dead and rolled his eyes, knowing that they were dead before anyway, and were only animated by House. Sighing, he moved on, hands shoved deep in his pockets.

This had to end now.


	6. Chapter 5

Jenny didn't have time to gasp as she started falling. Bracing her muscles she closed her eyes and got ready to pull her legs up closer to her, until she realized she was swinging by her arm. Looking up, she met Captain Jack's blue eyes staring down at her flashing his perfect white teeth at her with his smile. For a moment he looked relaxed, his eyes sparkling with the same diamonds from the day she met him and his too-boyish dimples formed lightly on his cheeks. But behind those diamonds and dimples was the strain in his eyes.

All at once, she took notice of how much her arm ached from just supporting her own weight. It shouldn't have been this difficult. She was in peak physical health, not aging rapidly and her Time Lord genes stopped her muscles from needing the constant stimulation that humans required. Supporting her own weight should have been a walk in the park, but the strain was far beyond that.

She shifted her attention to Jack, seeing his muscles bulging beneath his shirt; she gasped and closed her eyes momentarily, praying that this wasn't happening. Pain shot through her arm and she stifled a small whimper and looked away from Jack for a few more seconds so hide her emotions.

"Jack?" She whispered his name, betraying only some of her fear, as she tightened her grip on her hand. Risking a look down, she noted that House was only allowing her to look about ten fee down before the gap turned pitch black. Her eyes widened involuntarily before she could force herself to look away.

"He's controlling the gravity," Jack told her with a tone of knowledge, but one that was far from acceptance. He tried to pull and she stifled a scream, but the agony must have been more prevalent on her face. "Sorry," he apologized, as he tried reaching down for her left hand, as she tried to meet him halfway, but her arms felt like they were being weighed down with buckets being filled with more and more concrete.

"Jack, it's getting stronger," she told him, when he finally managed to get a hold of her hand. Relief washed over her from the simple touch, but her mind told her that there was no reason to feel it. She was going to fall.

"No it's not, Jenny," Jack lied to her, as he squeezed her hands in comfort. "Now, this is gonna hurt."

His face was the picture of an apology; while he positioned his feet so that they anchored him firmly to the ground, while he slowly slid his hands down Jenny's to her wrists to get more purchase on her. He bit his lip before continuing, giving the girl whose life he held in his hands a look that might have been asking for permission. She understood of course. Jack had seen so much bad and caused so much pain, whether he meant to or not, and neither of them wanted to add to it.

She smiled at him, and tried to think of a joke to say to lighten the mood, but words seemed to elude her.

Jenny saw him maneuver himself again as if to gain more traction, but she knew he was stalling. He was waiting for the chance that maybe, just maybe house would be kind, take pity and let her go.

He was hoping for a miracle.

He tightened his grip firmly around her, to the point that neither was sure that they would ever be able to separate themselves again. Of course, neither of them was going to complain about that possibility.

She gritted her teeth together hard, as he counted to three. Pain shot through her, as he tugged on her, and she slowly felt herself being pulled up, while she clawed her hands tighter into him. Then House fought back harder and pulled back. Jack was forced to loosen his grip from Jenny's screams of pain, and the tug on her seemed to relent slightly, leaving Jenny panting while her feet dangled over the edge.

Looking up at Jack, Jenny forced a smile and squeezed his hand. "Love you, Jack."

He recognized that look; she gave him the same one, when they were pulled in opposite directions as they were separated in the reality the library had created for them.

"You're not saying goodbye," Jack nearly shouted, tightening her grip on her hands, while she shook her head and smirked. Her words were coming back to her, she could use them now. Her words were strong. She could make him believe in her. Believe in them. Believe in him.

"Most would answer, 'I love you too, Jenny'," she grated, as her shoulders screamed in pain.

"I love you, and that's why I'm not saying goodbye," he told her, while she looked down, at the pitched black underneath her.

She swung her feet a bit, as if she could get the floor to come up to her. The pull seemed to lighten up a bit, making her think that just maybe it was safe. If Jack tried to pull her to safety the gravity would surely be strengthened again. He was making the answer so obvious. "You need to let go."

"No. Never," Jack told her, pulling back slightly.

"I'm not leaving you Jack, but we can't sit here forever, or until we both fall in," Jenny told him. "Let go. Trust me?"

Jack gritted his teeth. "It's not a matter of trust, Jen."

"I'll find you, I promise," Jenny told him, as she started to let go, but she was stopped as Jack tugged her back.

"Wait, Jenny," Jack said fleetingly. "I want you to have something."

Shaking her head fervently, she looked piercingly into his eyes. "Don't do anything you wouldn't have done before."

"I would have though," he promised, and gave a small mirthless laugh. "Even asked your dad before you came into the console room today. He moved his arm over to his other and had Jenny grab onto it quickly as he fished in his pocket, pulled out the velvet covered box, and revealed the ring. "It's a promise," said Jack, taking the ring between his thumb and forefinger and carefully sliding it on Jenny's left hand, without her having to relinquish most of her grip. "I'll find you, Jenny."

"I know," and with that, Jenny released her grip from Jack's hands, flexing them to force Jack's still clinging hands from her.

And, she fell.

~/~

Rose reached out and touched the woman's temples, but she stopped and lingered for a moment. The two woman's eyes locked together and the TARDIS automatically knew what Rose wanted.

"I'll hold back, so you can talk to her," the TARDIS told her.

Rose felt the transfer take place as the TARDIS's thoughts flowed into her mind and nearly knocked her off balance, while she squeezed her eyes shut. A thousand images flashed before her eyes, images from five seconds ago, five years ago, and the future. Rose blanched as faces she couldn't recognize assaulted her mind, a mad man, a woman so scared and so alone, and two others, standing side by side. Their faces melded with the rest of the images, Jack and Jenny clinging to each other desperately, her future self was shouting at the mad man, and her Doctor lying motionless on the ground surrounded broken glass, while blood trickled down his face.

Gasping, Rose tried to catch her breath, while she found herself on her knees in front of the woman's body the TARDIS's matrix had been resting in.

"_Sorry, Wolf,_" she heard the TARDIS within her mind. "_Transfers of this nature can be a bit… messy._"

"Tell me about it," Rose muttered back audibly, while she felt the TARDIS receding into the back of her mind, but she knew that she couldn't stay that way long. The TARDIS wouldn't survive being compressed into a smaller place. That's why she had to move to Rose, she was much more stable for her to reside inside.

The woman groaned and opened her eyes, and searched around before her sight fell on Rose. As she started to panic and flail her arms around weakly, Rose held her shoulders down and forced a reassuring smile to come to her face. "It's okay, you're fine now. Just rest."

"W-where am I? Where did they go?" the woman stuttered out looking around her, and rubbing her arms with her hands, while she tried to catch her breath.

"Somewhere safe," Rose said with a small smile and took the woman's hand, feeling her pulse slowing with her added sensitivity from the TARDIS.

"I'm cold," she whispered, letting out a shuddering breath and closing her eyes, as if she wanted to say something else, but she couldn't think of anything.

Rose bit her bottom lip and gave the woman a wan smile, trying to take her mind off of what was going on inside, her, while the TARDIS silently warned her that she couldn't stay suppressed much longer and the woman wouldn't last much longer either.

"What's your name?" Rose asked softly.

The woman concentrated hard, scrunching up her face, as if the simple act of thinking was a physical challenge. Rose rubbed her shoulders to encourage her and finally the woman's lips parted.

"Idris," she whispered.

"That's nice," Rose told her, honestly, while the woman grinned her thanks, as her face relaxed and she drew her last breath. Gently, Rose reached forward and lowered the woman's eyes, as she drew a deep breath. "Idris," she whispered, committing the name to memory, the woman who held the TARDIS.

Closing her eyes, Rose thought to her mistress, "_I'm ready._"

A slight golden glow came to surface in Rose's eyes, as the Bad Wolf energy came forward and surrounded her in a protective shield against the TARDIS's presence momentarily, as Rose's consciousness slid away. She remained awake, but she found her limbs being moved forward by the TARDIS, as she set out instinctively after her thief. It wasn't like when she was possessed by Cassandra. Instead of having her mind screaming in pain to be released, she found herself shrouded in warmth, while her body moved deliberately in the direction that she wanted to. It was almost liberating, like this was something that was always meant to be.

The devotion to the Doctor by both women was obvious, as they moved as one, Rose's body and the TARDIS's mind. The image of her Doctor's past regenerations passed in front of her eyes, a thousand times over, as she tried to reign it all in. It was almost overwhelming, but the ancient ship's mind obviously had a method to her madness, as images of the Time War flashed in front of her eyes.

She was blind to the fighting, the bloodshed and anger, like the TARDIS had been, sitting in the safety where her Time Lord had left her. Instead, Rose felt the pain and sadness of the TARDIS as she recalled waiting, thinking about him and hoping her would come back.

For a moment, Rose was sent back in time, feeling the Doctor's fingers running their way over a console unfamiliar to her, but clear to the TARDIS. He gave her a drawn smile, while he stepped out. His eyes were so young, yet so old, so troubled, so broken. Rose couldn't take it. She would have screamed if she had control over her lips, but she didn't, so she sat back and watched. The Doctor left, with his back turned, an ancient, now dead language of screams echoed from outside as he opened the door, murmured something sadly, and closed it leaving the room in widespread, impermeable silence.

The TARDIS shared everything with Rose, the pain of waiting, and Rose shared with the TARDIS how much she hated waiting for the dimension cannon to take shape, while she was forced to go about normal life. The near misses, the pain of getting so close to the Doctor and just missing him and having to start from scratch again—having landings in the wrong universe where the Doctor was dead, or worse, hated her.

The images flashed forward until the Doctor came stumbling through the doors, broken and bloody. He muttered something about a Time Lock as he hurried over to the console and began pushing buttons at a seemingly random sequence, while the TARDIS tried her best to help him. The whole ship shuttered, as together they sealed off Gallifrey, the Time Lords and the Daleks.

Pushing off the console, a golden glow began to surround the Doctor after a few agonizing screams, Rose's first Doctor appeared. Hardness in his eyes, and hurt, like when they had first met, only somehow it was even rawer and more hate filled.

The memories receded, as the TARDIS focused her attention on controlling Rose's body, while preserving her energy.

"_Sorry, Wolf,_" she apologized as she looked down at herself in Rose's body.

"_S'alright,_" Rose thought back, wishing she could rub her temples to stop them from throbbing. "_I know you must have had a reason._"

"_Indeed_," the ancient ship replied with almost a haughty air, while she walked briskly towards the direction the Doctor had gone in. It wasn't long before they caught up to him, his hands shoved deeply inside his voluminous pockets, while he stared at the ground, walking away from them.

"_Call him Doctor,_" Rose thought to her, when she felt the TARDIS getting ready to shout, "thief." Feeling the TARDIS's pressure making her mind less sharp, she receded back further before continuing,"_So, it's easier for him to come over so you can explain yourself._"

The TARDIS gave her wolf an affirmative mental nod, as Rose's mind drifted off to sleep and ticked over in her head. Taking inventory on her latest body, she could feel the human child's organ's beginning to strain slightly, but they would last a few more hours yet. She brought her hand up in the customary motion that she had witnessed many humans making.

"Rose," her thief called, as he ran up to her and looking around her.

"Doctor," the TARDIS whispered, mimicking Rose's accent perfectly.

"Where's the TARDIS?" the Doctor asked, peering over her shoulder as he rested his hands just above both her elbows. "She doesn't have much time left."

"Actually, I'd say, that she has relatively Four hours and eight seconds relative to Earth time, that you've become so fond of thinking in," the TARDIS blurted out, before covering her mouth with her hands and muttering an oops. "I mean. Oi! Erm. Hello, goodbye, I love you, no that's no right, what does she say to you?"

The Doctor took a step back and released her. "TARDIS and Rose, you're my TARDIS and my Rose."

He put his hand on his face and pinched his nose, spinning around quickly and groaning in frustration. "You can't just hop from one body to the next, it's not right."

"Well, I did," she retorted, putting her hands on her hips and giving the Doctor a hard stare, making him flinch, as he looked deeply into Rose's eyes. The TARDIS's consciousness was obviously there, but he still felt like he was looking at his Rose. Gently, he touched her cheek and TARDIS allowed him to move both his hands to her temples, as he sought out his girl.

"She's resting," the TARDIS told him, while he entered her mind, feeling the Doctor's silver consciousness stream past hers and to Rose's golden mind gently curled up and safe inside her thoughts. He brushed her gently with his and found himself gently coaxing a soft mental message from her.

"_Love you, Doctor,_" her voice came back to him, before she receded back away and her glow dimmed. Brushing her one more time with his mind, the Doctor left.

"I love you too, Rose," he told her audibly, before lifting his head and looking at the TARDIS in Rose's body. "How is she holding up?"

"Better than the last body," she told him. "She's much stronger, thief."

A small snort rose up in his mouth, as she agreed with him, and he shook his head sadly from side to side. She was strong, but he didn't want to keep pushing it. He had come close to losing her forever so many times and always ended up getting her back, but someday he knew that their luck would run out. It couldn't be now. He couldn't lose Rose or the TARDIS, but that's what this could all come down to and he knew it. If they couldn't get back to the TARDIS, and let the TARDIS back into her home, then Rose would die. Or, if he forced the TARDIS to leave Rose, he would lose the one companion that had been with him the longest and through the most. The universe couldn't make him chose between the two of them, could it?

Nothing could be that cruel.

"How long did you say she had?" the Doctor asked, but quickly amended himself. "Not how long she had to live, but before she suffers permanent damage to her systems."

"Two hours before permanent damage," she told him.

"Right," the Doctor said, closing his eyes, and reaching for her hand instinctively, while they started walking down a path, not really knowing where to go from here. "I suppose I'm rather useless then."

The words were nearly silent, in fact, he wasn't even sure if he had said them, but the TARDIS had picked up on the meaning either way, and jerked him hard. "You're not giving up."

"You're right." the Doctor said miserably. "I already did." He reached a cliff and stared out at the Junkyard. Pieces of broken consoles were everywhere, while other seemingly arbitrary items lay scattered about from still functioning chameleon circuits. He hated to see them. The Doctor had hated seeing it the day that he was on Gallifrey and rescued the TARDIS. The ships were living, he knew that, but sometimes it felt like no one else did and left them to be scrapped.

He felt the TARDIS place her hands on his shoulders and gently lower him to the ground. He tried to turn and look at her, but instead, he felt tender hands guide his head in the direction of the junkyard. He tried to close his eyes, but something about the TARDIS silent insistence made him look.

"No you didn't," the TARDIS told him. "You never have and you never will. You never gave up when you had nothing left to lose and you won't give up now that you have everything to lose. That's what she likes most about you."

Giving a mirthless laugh, the Doctor shook his head. "I never should have taken her away."

"Where would she be if not with you?"

"Safe."

"Bored."

"Domestic."

"Lonely."

"Loved."

"She is now, isn't she?"

"Yes," the Doctor muttered. "But, that doesn't save her."

"No, but that brain of yours does."

"Why can't you just tell me?" the Doctor pleaded with her.

"The time lines are being strict. Your song is ending, and everything must fall into place," the TARDIS answered sadly, as she leaned her head on the Doctor's shoulder and felt him tense up underneath her touch.

His song was ending.

"What?"

"Sorry, I wasn't meant to tell you that, either. But, be careful, my thief," the TARDIS whispered.

Nodding, the Doctor forced the thought to the back of his mind, as he looked out to the junkyard again. A TARDIS Junkyard.

"TARDIS junk," the Doctor murmured.

"Yes," the TARDIS encouraged.

"You can't be suggesting that we fly a TARDIS without an exterior shell," the Doctor gasped.

"I am," she answered, obviously confused by the Doctor's change in emotions, as he took her hand and shouted cheerfully for once and sprinted down the hill.

~/~

Screams filled Jenny's ears, as she fell. It was so surreal. Air rushed past her, whipping her hair painfully across her face, and causing her to tense up as she curled her arms around her body protectively, knowing that it probably wouldn't do anything. If House wanted her dead, then he would kill her. If he wanted her to live, then he would spare her to torture her more.

Biting her teeth together hard, while she saw the ground rushing up on her as an enormous speed, she squeezed her eyes shut, thinking about her dad, and Rose, and Jack, and wondered if she was still able to regenerate with that thing controlling the TARDIS. If it could temporarily stop Jack from being a fixed point, then surely it could stop her body from regenerating, or would it?

It didn't matter now, she supposed.

Muttering a goodbye to no one in particular, she readied herself for the impact, but it never came. Instead, she felt herself slow to a gentle stop and hang in midair for a moment before she rolled herself over and touched the ground lightly with her feet. Gasping softly, she looked up to yell back at Jack that she was okay, but the opening had closed up, and had separated him from her.

Looking down at her feet, Jenny shook her head. Clasping her hands together, she felt the ring that Jack had slipped on there. It must have been a custom before the fifty-first century, because she had never seen anyone in her travels wearing one. Jack had lived through a lot; surely he had adopted it from back then. However, that didn't lessen her understanding of the gravity of what he was proposing. He wanted to be with her, make sure that they were together as long as they could be. Coupled with the small diamond and the golden band was a million words that neither of them would ever speak, because they both understood.

"You're not winning," Jenny vowed, looking up at the ceiling and glaring at it, as she started walking forward, calling Jack's name as she went. She trailed her hand over the rough walls of the twisting corridors of the TARDIS. She walked for what felt like forever, before she heard moaning and started running towards it. With renewed optimism, she sprinted forward, and shouted Jack's name.

A pained response met her, as she ran faster around a corner and her eyes met him. He was turned away from her, his arms pulled up around his legs, while blood clearly stained the back of his shirt in several small patches.

"Jack," she whispered, hurrying over to him and putting her hand over his shoulder and helped him to turn around. "Talk to me Jack."

He turned around slowly and looked at her with pain and anger in his eyes. "You left me. You're fine and you left me."

"I didn't want to Jack," Jenny told him, wiping some blood away from his split lip, as she gathered him in her arms. "You know that."

"I needed you, Jenny," Jack whimpered uncharacteristically. "I needed you."

"I'm here now," Jenny told him.

"That's not good enough," Jack said with a tone that had turned suddenly icy.

Jenny was about to question him, but stopped when she heard the sound of Jack cocking back the hammer of his revolver, and the feeling of cool metal met her stomach.


End file.
